Online Privacy Settings: A Practical Guide for Everyone
Most people use the default privacy settings that technology companies set. Those defaults are almost never in your best interest. This guide helps you take control.
Default Settings Are Not Your Friend
When you set up a new device, app, or social media account, the default settings are typically chosen by the company providing the service to maximise data collection, engagement, and sharing, not to protect your privacy. This is not an accident. Data about your behaviour, location, preferences, and social connections is extremely valuable to technology companies and to the advertisers who pay them. Your privacy is not the priority; it is the trade-off.
Taking control of your privacy settings does not require technical expertise. It requires a one-time investment of time to work through the key settings on the platforms you use, and a habit of reviewing these when you update apps or sign up to new services. This guide covers the most important areas.
Social Media: The Highest-Risk Area
Social media profiles are where most people inadvertently make the most information about themselves publicly accessible. On every platform you use, go to the privacy or settings section and work through the following.
Who can see your posts and profile? Set this to friends or followers only, not public, unless you are deliberately building a public presence. Review what information is visible on your profile: date of birth, location, employer, phone number, and email address are all useful to identity thieves and should be shared only where necessary.
Who can find you? Most platforms allow people to search for you by phone number or email address. Consider disabling this if you do not want to be findable by people who only have your contact details. Review whether your profile appears in search engine results and disable this if you prefer.
Review tag settings: can other people tag you in photos and posts that then appear on your profile? Can their followers see those tags? On most platforms you can require approval before a tag appears on your timeline.
Location settings: many apps request access to your precise location even when not in use. Review which apps have location access in your phone settings and restrict this to only what is genuinely necessary. Social media platforms do not need to know your precise location to function.
Google and Similar Account Settings
Google accounts (which also encompass YouTube, Gmail, and Android device management) collect substantial data about your activity. Visit myaccount.google.com and work through the data and privacy section. You can review and delete your search history, location history, YouTube watch history, and other activity. You can also turn off storage of this data going forward.
Review which third-party apps have been granted access to your Google account. Many people grant access to apps they no longer use and then forget them. Removing unnecessary third-party access reduces the number of entities that can access your data.
Browser Settings and Tracking
Web browsers can be configured to reduce the amount of tracking that happens while you browse. Consider using Firefox or Brave as alternatives to Chrome, both of which have stronger privacy defaults. In whichever browser you use, turn on enhanced tracking protection, clear cookies regularly, and consider using private or incognito mode for searches you would rather not have stored in your browser history.
Browser extensions including uBlock Origin (for ad and tracker blocking) and Privacy Badger significantly reduce the tracking that happens as you browse. These are free and make a measurable difference to the amount of data collected about your browsing behaviour.
Smartphone Settings
Your smartphone is one of the most data-rich devices in your life. Review the following settings.
App permissions: in your phone settings, review which apps have access to your camera, microphone, contacts, location, and other sensitive functions. Restrict each to only what is genuinely necessary. A flashlight app does not need access to your contacts. A shopping app does not need your microphone access.
Advertising ID: both iOS and Android allow you to reset or opt out of the advertising identifier used to track you across apps. On iPhone, go to Settings, Privacy, Tracking, and turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track. On Android, go to Settings, Privacy, Ads, and opt out of personalised ads.
Location services: review which apps have access to your precise location and when. Many apps can function with approximate location rather than precise, and most do not need location access when not in use.
Making Privacy a Habit
The most valuable privacy practice is not a one-time settings review but an ongoing habit of thinking about what you share and with whom. Before posting, consider who can see this and whether you are comfortable with that. Before granting an app permission, consider whether it actually needs this access. Before signing up to a new service, check what data it collects and how it is used in the privacy policy.
Privacy does not require paranoia. It requires a baseline of awareness about how the digital world actually works and a willingness to make deliberate choices rather than accepting the defaults that were chosen by companies to serve their interests, not yours.