Mobile technology has improved over the years. We are now capable of transmitting information all over the world using the internet. However, we need to be careful about what we are sharing online. With the expansion of social media networks, people now are sharing more personal information such as addresses, credit cards, photos, identity, and much more. With this expansion, the world is facing the problem of privacy for the first time. In this blog, you will know about how to protect your privacy on your Android device.
Privacy rights are not something new, but privacy acts at this scale, where we trust huge corporations like Facebook with all our information are still not explicitly determined. This means that you need to take extra precautions about your privacy.
In this article, we will go through some of the ways you can protect your privacy on your Android device.
1.Encrypt Your Android Device
The only way preventing information leaks not just from your android device but from all devices is through encryption. This way, if anyone accesses your information, it will be useless since it will be a bunch of random characters that do not mean anything. You can encrypt your device through the “security” menu in Android. In order to encrypt your phone successfully, your device needs to be plugged in and you need to type your PIN. It is essential that you remember your PIN because if you forget it, your data will be stuck on your phone forever.
2. Make Sure Your Software is Up-to-Date
Most hacks occur due to leaking in the operating system on your device. That is why we see constant updates from software developers, as they are improving the security of our devices. You need to make sure you always have plenty enough space for updates in order to avoid making your phone venerable for hackers.
3. Check App Permissions
There is also plenty of information leaking through third-party applications. This means that you need to be careful about what you are downloading and if the company can be trusted. Your data cannot be accessed from a third party application if you don’t allow it. It is like the first layer of security on your Android device. However, there are plenty of apps that use your data for their marketing purposes, promotional material, targeting, and much scarier things.
That is why you need to over each application and find out what information they are gathering from you. You can turn off apps that require sensitive information and still use their functionality.
One thing most applications require is the location share. This is violating your privacy, so you need to turn off the location sharing function for applications that don’t require it for their use.
4. Avoid Google Data Protection
As we all know, Google is probably gathering data about us more than we can imagine. They probably know more about ourselves than us. Every Android phone comes with Google sharing data-enabled, which means that you are sending information to them with everything you do. That is why you see ads about a product seconds after you search it. Fortunately, there is a way that you can turn this function off, even though they tried to hide it from us. You can go to settings and look for “activity controls.” This is where you can limit the amount of data you share with Google.
5. Review Your Cloud Sync
Most people decide to go with cloud storage, which offers many benefits. However, your cloud will sync to most of your apps, and transfer that information directly to their storage. Just like checking app permissions, you need to check what apps are sharing data on your cloud. You can turn off cloud syncing for applications by going to Settings>Accounts, and selecting the application you want to limit the information share.
Unfortunately, people get serious about their privacy after they’ve experienced an attack, which is probably already too late. We need to take extra precautions about our security in order to avoid information leaking faster than a horse running on the Kentucky Derby race.
Remember, you should also use the more traditional methods like the PIN code of Face ID on your phone, and limit the information you share.