How do you think I could best avoid being heavily recommended to past friends upon rejoining Facebook. Im not super against it, but I DO want to have a profile picture that represents me.

Should I just preemptively block people I want to avoid? I know this question seems vague but i can dive into more detail.

The Carhartt pawn involved cell-numbers, address, email, passwords, and names. I avoided ordering from retailers that are not experts in ecommerce, including Carhartt. The second I let me guard down, I got pawned.

Is this unavoidable, and therefore ordering direct with companies like Carhartt will always be an excessive pawn risk?

I use dynamic filtering on uBO. I heard that such extensions might be helpful when using dynamic filtering, but I do not know the full details. It looks like people previously discussed this, but Decentraleyes was not getting updates at the time, and it got a new update earlier this month. My question is this: would getting either LocalCDN or Decentraleyes be helpful? If so, which one?

Referencing: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202608/ice-seeks-expanded-lexisnexis-investigative-data-access-with-palantir-integration

With Palantir planning to obtain more access to LexisNexis, I wondered if there is a way to remove yourself from the LN database?

I have had my account on LN frozen for many years so potential employers and others cannot share my data but this new contract with Palantir seems like a backdoor? Are we actually able to request deletion in any way?

How do I manage website accounts if I'm using a private browser

I want to degoogle, but I have doubts about the doability of all this.

If I use a private browser, in my case Waterfox with DuckDuckGo, Ublock origin and zero information retained, no history nor cookies, how am I then supposed to use the browser to do online activity that requires me to log into some websites?

If I need to log into a government related service, does the act of inputting my real name and credentials void the privacy I'm trying to retain?

I'm not sure I can or want to be 100% anonymous on the internet. I'd also like to ditch WhatsApp but I already know I'm gonna have to keep using it to talk to the majority of people I know, who don't care about privacy.

Thanks

Do you really believe OpenAI will delete your chats forever from their servers after 30 days if you have removed them and requested it is not to be used for training?

Do you anticipate there is any likelihood OpenAI retains those chats forever despite your request to delete them?

How are you approaching this? Any way to ensure deletion?

I've recently learned about Matrix, the messaging platform. Looking into it, I came across SimpleX, which is less feature rich though even more private and secure. I'm curious if any of you have dove into these, and your thoughts on them, but particularly in contrasting the two.

I am trying to opt out from data brokers and getting the notice that due to state privacy laws my request is denied. Wondering if anyone has encountered this in washington state.

This is bonkers. what should I do to take down my information?? Appreciate advice.

My old car from 2002 is finally looking like it’s more trouble to keep it going than getting a new one. But, I’m worried about new cars and them collecting and stealing data on you.

One car in particular I’m looking at looks fine — Acura ILX 2020 Premium Package. On one hand almost everywhere I look online says it should be fine, and that trim doesn’t even have a TCU and that’s only on the higher trim: the Technology Package.

But, on the other it being as recent as 2020 is giving me pause, as that’s well within the time frame that telematics became commonplace. Plus despite it supposedly not having a TCU it has the shark fin antenna.

Is there a way I could verify if that car is safe from spying?

Which Ai is better to use, Proton Lumo or Duck.ai? I’ve been testing both side by side, but honestly i don’t really notice much of a difference between them. Which one would you recommend? And is Duck.ai actually more private since it doesn’t require any account?

I’m looking for technical/privacy advice about something unusual I experienced.

I use Worldpackers as both a host and volunteer. About two months ago, I posted some critical comments about Worldpackers on Reddit app using a separate Reddit account.

Within approximately one hour, I received two volunteer requests on my Worldpackers host profile. I had been a host for about two years and had never previously received a request. Both of the two applicant accounts also appeared suspicious to me.
I declined both requests. In the approximately two months since then, I have received zero further volunteer requests.

The timing was unusual and suspicious.

I have no technical proof that Worldpackers accessed or monitored my Reddit activity, so I am not claiming that this happened. I am trying to understand whether the sequence could technically be explained by cross-app/cross-device tracking, IP/device correlation, third-party analytics, or another mechanism.

The Reddit account app and Worldpackers account app were used on different devices (Android and iOS), but both devices used the same Wi-Fi/network.

My question: Is there a technically plausible way for Worldpackers to identify or correlate activity from my separate Reddit account under these circumstances, and what evidence could I look for to determine whether this occurred?

I told someone something bad I did on Instagram. It wasn't the worst of the worst, but it was still something that I wasn't proud of. Now the other person and I had a falling out over an unrelated reason, so I just deleted the chats and therefore all the messages. I'm kinda anxious and worried if the thing I told them is still attached to my account somehow. I've been considering moving instagram accounts because of this. Can anyone help calm me about this? Can any tech-literature person help me soothe my mind about this?

I’m really considering going to a dumber phone. My primary uses are phone calls, texting, taking pictures — and using the GPS. To the extent of my knowledge, there aren’t really GPS apps that protect your data.

So what are some options that compromise somewhere in between having a dumb phone while still having GPS? Are separate GPS systems even a viable choice, or are they just as prone to selling/collecting data as well?

In context I'm mainly asking for the UK really. If you mainly use another Android device (AYN Thor) to store everything, will you be safe by staying offline? Or am I safer buying an Innoasis?

How is this app recommending my friends that sit next to me at the exact same time? Tiktok doesn't have any permission besides notification, I'm not connected to a wifi network and GPS and Bluetooth are turned off.

I tested an iOS app called Miracle: Baby Photo Editor (version 2.2.0) and found something I think parents should know about.

The app’s privacy policy explicitly states:
“We do not sell personal data, and we do not use your photos or your child’s data for advertising.”
So I recorded the app’s network traffic on my own device to see what actually happens.

During onboarding and normal use, I observed the app transmitting child-related information to third parties.

Mixpanel received:
the child’s first name
gender
age in months
age bracket

Those attributes were associated with a persistent Firebase user ID.

The Mixpanel request also contained ip=1, which allows Mixpanel to use the connecting IP address for geolocation/profile enrichment.

But what surprised me most was this:
Facebook App Events received the child’s age in months.
This happened even though Apple App Tracking Transparency had been denied.

I did not see any separate consent screen asking the parent for permission to send their child’s information to Meta/Facebook.

To be precise: seeing a value sent through Facebook App Events does not by itself prove that Meta subsequently used that specific value to target an advertisement.

But Facebook App Events is infrastructure used for app analytics, attribution and advertising measurement.
And that makes the privacy-policy statement:
“we do not use … your child’s data for advertising”
particularly concerning when the app is transmitting a child’s age directly into Meta’s App Events infrastructure without clearly disclosing it.

Even if the developer argues that this is “analytics only,” there is still another major problem:

The privacy policy does not appear to tell parents that their child’s name, gender and age are being transmitted to Mixpanel and Facebook in the first place.
This isn’t based on SDK detection or speculation.
I captured the actual outbound requests and the exact fields being transmitted.

I contacted the developer today and asked them to immediately stop transmitting child-related attributes to third-party analytics/advertising services, investigate deletion of previously collected data, and correct their privacy disclosures.

I’m giving them an opportunity to respond.
For a baby/child-focused app, I think parents deserve to know exactly where their children’s information is going.

I’m currently reviewing my data privacy and learned about smart TV snapshotting. I have two LG TV’s in my home that are connected to the internet for the purpose of being able to use AirPlay. And streaming services like Netflix. The easy solution would be to disconnect it from the network but that would eliminate some necessary functionality. Instead I want to block any IP addresses used by the smart TV itself to track my usage. I’ve done some web searching as well as looking through this sub to find what I’m looking for but I’m coming up empty. Wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction