Explore six practical strategies to combat privacy fatigue, featuring expert insights from industry leaders on tracker blocking, permission audits, browser choices, and reducing digital footprints.
The fatigue of constant decisions
Constantly being asked questions every time someone visits a new website, downloads a file, or creates an account creates a lot of mental fatigue. Jason Ng from the OpenVPN team notes that fatigue comes from constantly having to make choices and suggests saving our attention for the few important things, like which apps are sharing our data. Chris Wallis, founder of Intruder, emphasizes that when notifications inundate users, the most serious risks risk getting lost in the noise. For this reason, using automated tools helps significantly.
For her part, Cylab professor Lorrie Cranor says that a level of fatigue may be inevitable, but she relies on out-of-the-box tools like browser extensions and search engines that protect privacy. She also suggests a simple rule: when presented with a data option, always choose the setting that protects the most privacy, unless you find that a necessary feature is not working. Mozilla’s Neha Kochar points out that choosing companies that collect less data from the start drastically reduces the number of everyday decisions. Kochar herself almost fell victim to a scam message pretending to be a hotel and asking for confirmation of a booking, after data was leaked to a third-party company.
Six simple ways to reduce fatigue
Maintaining privacy doesn't require disappearing from the internet. Automating choices reduces digital workload through six practices:
- Setting up a tracking blocker: Adding a tool, such as Ghostery, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Privacy Badger, or DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, instantly stops advertisers from tracking your browsing history.
- Change browser: Using a program that protects privacy up front fills significant gaps in daily monitoring.
- Check app permissions: Most apps don't need to know your location or access your contacts. Restricting permissions keeps your device safe.
- Reject cookies: As a general rule, disabling unnecessary logs on websites usually does not affect their functionality.
- Cleaning up social media accounts: Removing personal information from profiles, deleting inactive accounts, and limiting access to friends only limit exposure.
- Block unwanted calls: Most mobile phone providers have settings to filter calls from strangers, preventing the inadvertent sharing of voice and personal information with scammers.
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