What is a digital footprint?

Your online activities create a trail, known as a #digitalfootprint, which can be used to track you.

Learn how to avoid leaving one and how to make it work for your benefit.

⬇️1/6 Defining your digital footprint

A #digitalfootprint is created by online activity, leaving behind a visible mark of your presence. Browsing, logging in, and clicking links are all recorded in some way.

⬇️2/6

🍎 Apple’s marketing team has built a powerful association between the #iPhone and #privacy.

But actions speak louder than billboards.

Let's talk about why your iPhone is not as private as you might think and what can you about it.

⬇️ 1/6 While #Apple claims “what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone,” recent court files paint a different picture.

Apple lawyers stated that “no reasonable user would expect that their actions in Apple’s apps would be private from Apple.”

⬇️ 2/6

Studies show that we feel most romantic in springtime, so chances are many of you will be looking for a soulmate soon. 💜

Here are some steps to make #onlinedating as safe as possible.

⬇️ 1 / 11 STEP 1. Choosing the app or a website

Check if the dating app or dating website you plan to sign up to is on @haveIbeenpwned’s list of breached services: .

⬇️ 2 / 11haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites

This year is democracy's biggest test in history. Here are our seven predictions for the internet in 2024.

#Elections2024
1/9 1️⃣ Increased targeted censorship

As governments increase censorship, internet accessibility decreases, particularly for social media, messaging apps, and critical news sites.
2/9

Keeping you up to date with privacy and security news is one of the reasons we’re active on social media.

Here are the 2023 highs and lows - the news we've shared that you've found the most interesting:

🧵1/7 Early in the year, we raised awareness about internet censorship in #Turkey and enabled our Turkish community to fight it:

🧵2/7

https://x.com/ProtonPrivacy/status/1623353943936974852?s=20

Now that everything's online, fraudsters have proliferated. In 2022, the FTC received over 1.1M reports of identity theft. Here’s a thread on how malicious individuals steal your info and 10 ways you can prevent it: 🧵⬇️ Scammers steal your personal data, like credit card numbers or your name or address, which they use to pretend to be you. 🥸

A small list of how it can happen:
🎣 Phishing
🤖 Data breaches
👾 Malware
🤳 Social media
🗑️ Your trash

Read on for 10 ways to protect yourself. 🧵⬇️

Google continues to build its massive surveillance empire under the sinister guise of “privacy.” In its latest iteration on #Android, @Google lets you opt into their “Ad Topics,” which roughly translated means, “Let Google be the gatekeeper of all your data.” (1/4) What happens is that Google opts you out of third parties grabbing up your data, but it doesn’t opt Google out of it. So by opting into their Ad Topics on @Android, you allow Google to get your data & no one else, essentially crowning it king of the #bigdata monopoly. (2/4)

You’ve probably heard of “green-washing" – where polluting companies pretend they're climate-friendly.

There’s also privacy-washing – where #BigTech pretends it’s privacy-friendly.

Ironically, #Google's CEO said “Privacy cannot be a luxury good.”

Let's unpack this🧵⬇️ (1/5) In @sundarpichai’s @NYTimes op-ed, he omits the fact that #Google has created one of the biggest surveillance dragnets in human history – bigger than the CIA or NSA. (2/5)

For 2023, #BigTech companies like @Meta, @Apple, @Google, @Amazon, & @Microsoft have been fined over $2 billion for privacy violations and monopoly abuse.

This seems like a lot. But only until you see how much time it takes for them to pay.
🧵⬇️ (1/4) Let's look at #BigTech's cash on hand. This refers to a company’s cash after it has paid all its costs.

#Apple - $55.87 billion
#Alphabet (#Google) $118.33 billion
#Meta (#Facebook) $37.44 billion
#Amazon $64.40 billion
#Microsoft $111.26 billion

🧵(2/4)

.@OpenAI's #ChatGPT reached 100M users in two months. It spurred on @Google and @Microsoft to add chatbots to their business models. But what are the consequences of #AI and your personal data? Read this thread to find out more. 🧵⬇️ (1/7) We're in the middle of one of the largest tech gold rushes since the early 90s. But the resource these #BigTech companies are digging for is your private data to train their chatbots. Find out how. ⬇️ (2/7)

This International Women's Day, we shout out to the female pioneers fighting for a better internet. To celebrate and spotlight them, we share their inspiring quotes in the thread below.🧵
#IWD22

With no action from US Congress to pass a privacy bill anytime soon, we see more calls for the @FTC to fill the void.

While the FTC can address things like online data practices in certain circumstances, it is limited in what it can do to ensure Americans' privacy. (1/7) Why is that?

1. The FTC is only as strong as Congress allows it to be (Congress determines its funding).
2. The FTC was created to tackle industrial giants that dominated the US economy over a century ago, and the laws haven't been updated for today's digital world. (2/7)

You're a privacy & security all-star:
✔️ You use @ProtonMail, @signalapp & @DuckDuckGo
✔️ You limit the information you share online
✔️ You update your software regularly
✔️ You verify email links before clicking

Yet...there's still a gap. And that gap's not you.

The Swiss government released its SwissCovid contact tracing app yesterday. swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerlan… As many of our users have noted, the app’s use of Bluetooth makes you vulnerable to Google location tracking. Here's our perspective, as Switzerland's largest privacy company: 1/8 Switzerland’s app lets people infected with COVID-19 anonymously notify people they’ve been in contact with that they may also have contracted the virus. These people can then quarantine themselves, preventing further transmission of the disease. 2/8

The "Halvening" is upon us. Starting tonight, Bitcoin cut its reward for completing a block in half, from 12.5 #BTC to 6.25. The last time this happened in 2016, it was a prelude to a leap in value. Continue reading to learn how to buy and secure Bitcoin. #BitcoinHalving2020 Bitcoin was created in 2009, but many people still do not understand the original cryptocurrency. We offer a practical explanation of what Bitcoin is, as well as where to buy it and how to store it:
protonmail.com/blog/how-to-bu…

Happy #WorldPasswordDay! Don't forget your security is only as strong as the weakest link. We have several resources to help you understand how passwords can be compromised and what you should do to protect them. First of all, should you use a "password" or a "passphrase"? The answer is that it depends. Learn about the password vs. passphrase debate: protonmail.com/blog/protonmai…

We’re living through an unprecedented situation with the pandemic. At Proton, we always strive to step up and help our community. That’s why we are introducing a series of measures to help with the global response to #COVID-19. A free, permanent storage increase of up to 10 GB. All existing paid users and all new paid subscriptions started before April 30 will be eligible for this increase. You shouldn’t have to worry about running out of space right now.