Seeing Google over reach with everything going on, basically turning android into iOS and not releasing latest updates to AOSP, and seeing an article which quotes “Bootloader unlocking restricted due to new cybersecurity rules”.

And that is just one, with the privacy concerns regarding chat control as well, what happened that suddenly made the place where people waited for and looked up to for privacy laws that didn’t follow cooperates to what it is trying to turn to now?

I am a none European, so I am unsure of the dynamics there and when I searched, people just say “lobbies” but I am aware that they existed in the EU before all that, what changed?

As most of you may have read, UK government is supposedly demanding Apple give them access to encrypted customer data. The only problem - even apple doesn't have access to 'advanced data protection' protected data.

Furthermore, not even GrayKey, used by authorities have reportedly been able to crack the iPhone 16 running iOS 18.

So remind me what is so bad about Apple?

I'm in the process of clearing a storage unit that was used by my brother who died recently. He had a computer support business. I've come across a large number of Hard disk drives. Approximately 1000. I assume these are old customer drives that he never got round to disposing of. I know hard disk shredders are the best way to go but was quotes £6 per disk and I don't have that kind of money.

I'm looking for a combination of best, simple and cheep way to destroy the disks so that it isn't economically sensible to search them for data.

First things first: I value my privacy, and I’m definitely not the type of person who would say, “I have nothing to hide—they can go ahead and monitor me.” I also have two young children, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about the debate over age verification and social media bans. I think it’s now undisputed that algorithm-driven dopamine hits have a negative effect on teenagers—and even children. Of course, it’s primarily my responsibility as a responsible and educated parent to teach my children how to use digital media in a healthy way. But I, too, would try to keep my children away from Instagram and TikTok for as long as possible. Many parents may not even be aware of the dangers, or they may be so overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting that they rely on screens far too early and for far too long as a parenting aid or as a break for themselves.

Doesn’t the absence of a social media ban perhaps even promote inequality, since there are children with and without social media accounts in the schoolyard, and a ban would eliminate that inequality? On the other hand, I also understand that it sets a precedent and opens a door that—once open—could be abused for other purposes. All the commentators I’ve read, for example, condemn age verification—which is, after all, necessary to enforce such a social media ban—because child protection is always seen as nothing more than a flimsy pretext. Why is that?

I'm genuinly curious, let me know what you think.

I keep hearing from tech savy people using apples face Id for unlocking is safe. Supposedly the information on your face never leaves the device.

How can they be so sure? Can someone explain in easy words why they are right, or why my hesitancy to use the feature is right?

I’ve had jobs that have forced me to log in in front of them with my personal phone to their app/platform. I no longer work at these places though. How dire is my situation am I supposed to be getting a new phone? I’m probably going to get called ignorant but I risked it because a job is a job.

I use various privacy focused and FOSS applications/services anywhere I can, but I’ve never gotten into network-wide modifications. Relevant stories keep hitting my feed with Mullvad now looking to support Quad9 and the recent news of LG TVs listening to you. Also I’ll never forget the Samsung washing machines sending GBs of data. I’d like to be able to learn about and set up some blocking and filtering on my home network, but I’m concerned it will interfere with people in my household who work from home. I also unfortunately still use the default Verizon Fios router that they give you. I never bothered to do the research and spend the money on a third party one. Is this a problem or can I effectively set up this stuff regardless? Any good comprehensive sources to learn this stuff? Thank you.

Hi - I've been deGoogling and deMicrosofting off and on for about a year. I'm learning a lot but I'm still a rookie so please be kind with answers to what is probably a stupid question: How does one know apps on F-Droid are safe to use? Are they vetted by anyone? Do the villagers rise up with torches if someone adds an app full of malware? Unless I'm missing it, there isn't a place for user reviews, number of downloads, etc and I don't have the skilset to break down lines of code to search out bad actors. Thanks in advance

Any reason for it? Does OS choices not impact your privacy? Also why only phones, why not also ban alt OS for PC?

Read a recent article on Forbes talking about a need to ditch passwords and 2FA immediately. Not being too techy, I was a little lost on this. It says don't use SMS 2FA but later says make sure you have 2FA/MFA turned on. The article explains Passkeys are things like biometrics - does this mean that it’s preferable to use biometrics to sign in to email on an iOS device? As in FaceID? How does it work when you sign in on the web on laptop? I didn’t walk away understanding what one needs to do to protect accounts. I know there are physical keys like Yubikeys but it makes it sounds like that’s all you need and not all companies leverage Yubikeys as a sign in option.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/02/28/gmail-outlook-2fa-warning-delete-your-password-now/

I have a (£four figure) payment to make, and the invoice remittance advice directs me to a page where I can use Flywire to pay with brank transfer, card, or 'pay by bank' with Trustly.

I recently had a horrible experience with a different third party online payment manager. Having my personal details deleted was a huge effort, with emails going back and forth and them asking me essentially for more information - photos of my passport for example - before they would consider my request to delete my address, dob, and payment information that they held.

So I prefer to not use these services if I can help it - although they're ubiquitous and it's proving hard to avoid.

I'd like to contact the recipient of the payment, and offer to pay using an alternative method. But I really don't know what alternative method to suggest? The invoice is legit and is not a scam.

Is a straightforward BACS transfer preferable? Or even PayPal? I feel clear on what I don't want to do, but unclear on the alternative options.

I recently bought a whoop fitness tracker, and i recognize that they have a lot of my activity data (sleep, heart rate, activity levels, and in the case of women reproductive info). I assume that they follow security/privacy industry best practices, what should my concerns be?

I get they can sell the data, but wouldn't it be annonymized? Is the concern if their databases get comprimised, then a malicious party could have access to my stuff (and if so, what risk is there).

Lastly, I view whoop as a data company that gets their data via fitness trackers. what are ways they/and their competitors monitize that data?

Privacy policy https://www.whoop.com/us/en/whoop-privacy-policies/

My goal for 2026 is to get more serious about privacy. I'd like to opt out of LexisNexis, but I'm worried that my auto insurance rate will skyrocket since I'd be effectively a "new" driver with no history. Curious if anyone else has done this and what their experience was? I am planning to request the Consumer Report, but it asks for you to choice to Opt-in or Opt-out during the request, without even being able to see the report first.

I drive a newer Mazda, which I understand is one of the better (not good) manufacturers when it comes to selling your data, but curious if anyone has any recommendations or experiences to share for privatizing the car better.

Thank you!

Hi, Not just my wife, but I found myself in several conversations with people who were like “Who cares, they vacuum everything up anyway!“

I’m not enough of a techie to fully understand more than the fact that I am working to wean myself away from Chrome ASAP based on my rudimentary understanding of what’s coming.

Also, assuming I successfully migrate to Firefox, I still need to use my various Gmail accounts and Google Docs, will that matter?

TIA!

I'm sorry in advance if this is the wrong place to post this, and as a woman, I'm in no way ignoring the horrific effect this has on women and family rights.

I've read a bit stating that Roe v Wade was initially rooted in a privacy issue. Can someone please explain this and explain how today's ruling can be used to further erode privacy?

One decade ago, California passed the gold standard regulation of law enforcement access to digital data in the United States. The law is still the strongest in the country. It requires that a California government entity get a warrant to search electronic devices or compel access to any electronic information, like email, text messages, documents, metadata, and location information—whether stored on the electronic device itself or online in the “cloud.”

In states without this protection, police routinely claim the authority to search sensitive electronic information without a warrant.

CalECPA is the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a riff on the 1986 federal ECPA law. Under CalECPA, no California government entity can search our phones and no police officer can search our online accounts without going to a judge, getting our consent, or showing it is an emergency.

Introduced by California State Senators Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Joel Anderson (R-Alpine), CalECPA was sponsored by EFF, ACLU of Northern California, and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and supported by a wide variety of rights groups and technology companies. It was spearheaded by Nicole Ozer, Technology & Civil Liberties Policy Director at ACLU, and Lee Tien, Legislative Director and the Adams Chair for Internet Rights at EFF. 

Today is Nicole Ozer's first day as Executive Director of EFF, taking over for Cindy Cohn.

The Supreme Court in 2018 expanded Fourth Amendment protections to require a warrant before obtaining cell phone location information. But CalECPA goes further, requiring a warrant before police obtain virtually any electronic data, device information, or location tracking information.

So this isn't about this account but I have an account where is wrote some sensitive medical information about me on reddit. I had deleted the posts but it's archived on Arctic Shift. I don't know anything about them but they have a removal request, you have to email them and it says that "Data can only be removed from API responses and future dumps." What does that mean? Is it even worth it to try it?

I'm in a major metro area in the U.S, and I'm not able to find any store (including walmart, target, bestbuy) that actually sell prepaid phone plans for cash. All of their plans are "digital delivery" via email and even then you need to call the telco's customer service (I guess with another phone?) to activate it. There are others that straight up require you to make an account with personal information required before activation.

I searched in this subreddit, but nobody actually explains how to buy a burner phone+plan for cash.

Does anyone have resources/ how to guide on how to build a bit more privacy online for luddites, especially if they want to keep using some of these services for some thing but not for others?

E.g: Moving email and photos to a usable service instead of outlook/ google/ auto upload of files etc?

I'm trying to tidy up my online presence but it's messy and I have zero idea about anything computers and also delinking accounts from google logins etc.

So, is there a luddites guide on where to start, what to consider when choosing how privacy focused you want to become and the challenges/ choices you may have to choose between at certain parts of the journey eg convenience/cost/ potential for information loss during change vs privacy level

Facebook recently provided Nebraska police the chat history between a mother and a daughter to prosecute them for abortion (Link). But the Facebook messenger is said to be end-to-end encrypted, meaning Facebook can't access the message contents. Then how did the submit the messages to the police?

My toxic sibling loves invading my privacy. He once made a fake fb account to send me friend request and talk to me. He once checked my photos behind my back. He once checked my social media when i left my phone unattended and many more things. Today he came and directly asked me my email address. He asked each letter and digit carefully. Now ,i am wondering what he might be trying to get access to? How do secure my social media , photos on Google photos etc ?

Hi,

Thanks to anyone who has more experience or expertise on here. It's been fun to read and try to put a lot of this stuff into practice. I've got an observation, that natuarlly leads to a question about prepaid credit cards. Like most of this stuff, I don't actually need the privacy for any real reason, but I like to see what does work and what doesn't. I've tried a few prepaid cards of differnt brands (although they seem to be similar enough I'm guessing they are the same company). That said, what I found is it was nearly impossible to find any online purchase that would accept a prepaid card. You also can't seem to pull your cash back from an ATM, or transfer to any other banck or platform like venmo or paypal.

So, what does one actually do with a prepaid credit card? If that's not a viable option for anonyomous transactions online, what is? I understand that there are some retailers that will accept crypto, but it's not really mainstream enough to seem like a functional option either.

Anyway, I'm just curious if I was missing something, doing something wrong, used the wrong brand of card, or what this communities thougths were about this.

Thanks in advance!

I hate how the YouTube algorithm is designed to keep me hooked instead of designed to provide me videos I might enjoy. I also hate how Google uses what I watch to build an online persona of me for targeted advertising and whatnot.

I see alternatives mentioned on this sub and online like GrayJay, NewPipe, FreeTube, etc. but don't really understand what they do or if they provide a solution to my problems.

I still want to have a home feed where I am recommended videos other than those from YouTubers I am already subscribed to, but just a non-predatory algorithm to decide which videos I get.

I am required to use a website on my personal computer that checks IP, location, device type, browser type, operating system.

I cannot block it as the website requires this. So I'd like to spoof this information.

Is there an easy way to go about this?

hello, I recently got this app for taking down my spoken word notes because it said it was privacy focused. I liked how I could just ramble out all my thoughts and then it wild put them together into a summary. it was one of the use cases I’ve been working on getting my home assistant to do. I’m not in tech or a programmer so this seemed like a good way to get that actually going til I could figure it out completely locally.

Am I being a fool and falling for another “your the product” type situation? Curious if any of you are familiar with the company and could let me know your advice on this.

or if you knew a way for me to do this all locally using my home assistant voice PE that would be great too, but mostly just want a sense of what the privacy level is of this company.

Thank you for any of the help and advice you can provide, not sure where else to ask this.