Understanding the Right to Privacy in the Age of Big Data

Turn your phone’s location option off, and deny your apps all access to your location data from your “settings” menu. There is no good reason for apps to ask for your location; they simply want to sell your data. If you need to use your maps function to navigate, just turn location “off” once you reach your destination.

Research how to maximize your browser’s privacy options, and strongly consider dropping Google altogether as a browser or search option.

There is no good reason for apps to ask for your location.

I wouldn’t say “no good reason.” At least one reason is proximity search. If you are asking Waze for the nearest gas station or nearest Mexican restaurant, location is good. If you want directions to it, location is necessary. I always deny location except in maps.

But turning it off probably doesn’t change it anyway.

“and strongly consider dropping Google altogether as a browser or search option.”

As someone who works in IT, I cannot emphasize this enough. Google’s entire business model revolves around collecting every scrap of information they can get about you and your devices in order to sell ads. There was a rather eye-opening account in The Guardian from a few years ago that is a must-read, and it covers Facebook as well. Gizmodo has steps for remedying this to some degree. Even platforms like Amazon Kindle are problematic because they require a Gmail account (since Kindle devices are forked from Android).

I do not recommend any Google services for Christians and Christian organizations, as there is culture of hostility to conservatives in general and Christians in particular within Google. I won’t get into the specifics, but anyone can research that further if they wish.