What you need to know: Many public wifi networks ask for an email address and/or a phone number before access is granted. This identifier allows the wifi provider to identify you and is generally used for their own marketing purposes. However, this data point packaged with location data is also often sold
What you need to know: Video conferencing software has seen a growth in usage as the technology improves and workforces become more dispersed than ever. From a data privacy perspective, there is not much detail on exactly what kind of data these companies collect or how they use it. However, based on
What you need to know: Consumers are increasingly using video streaming services in favor of traditional network TV. This trend has led to many large tech and media companies venturing into the space and offering programming and devices that support video streaming. Most video streaming services have basic personal data on you
What you need to know: Messaging apps can vary significantly in terms of data collection and privacy/security features. In general, most messaging app companies will not directly read your messages however, certain ones will collect information on users called metadata, which can include data such as your contact list, length and time
What you need to know: Many of the top personal email service providers scan user’s emails. The purpose of these scans can vary, including using the data to enhance services, provide product personalization, detect fraud, create auto-generated replies or in some cases explicitly for targeted advertising. Even if the service isn’t directly
What you need to know: Search engines collect a variety of information from you which can include search queries, click through-histories, location data and internet browsing histories. In addition, this information can be combined with data collected from other services provided by these companies like email, news portals, web browsers, collaboration tools,
What you need to know: All apps comes packaged with what are known as Software Development Kits (SDKs). Think of apps as a set of building blocks, where app developers build the blocks that are unique to the functionality of the app, but for many components like advertising and analytics, they stack
What you need to know: Social media networks, in addition to storing your general personal information (like name, DOB, occupation, email and phone number) also track everything you do on the site or app, which can include your likes, posts, comments, conversation, places you’ve visited and your network. They can also have
What you need to know: When you’re browsing the web online, websites often use unique IDs stored in “cookies” (data files stored in your browser) to identify you. They function as the site’s short-term memory and can remember your settings, preferences, activities and login status while you visit different pages on the