How to protect your personal data on a smartphone ?
Cell phones can contain a lot of personal information (bank details, confidential documents, etc.).). In order to preserve his privacy, every user is required to adopt measures that will help him to secure his personal data.
How to control your personal data ?
Today, access to a service offered on the Internet is often conditioned by the creating an account. In particular, you will have to provide your name and several information of a personal nature. Most of the time, these data are collected to be used for commercial purposes.
By multiplying online accounts, you facilitate the acquisition of your personal information. The password you create may not be strong enough or you may have chosen the same one you use for other accounts.
How to protect your personal data on a smartphone in this case ? The first step is to regain control of your private information. Start by listing all the sites you have registered on. Then sort out those that are no longer useful to you. Once you have identified services that you still need, access it and update your passwords. Also activate double authentication if possible.
A password manager will simplify your task.
Also remember to delete accounts linked to sites you no longer use. The related procedure has become easier since the adoption of the RGPD (general regulation on data protection).
In addition, make sure to protect your data on any social network. Does your presence on the latter continue to meet your confidentiality requirements ? If this is no longer the case, deleting your user account is the best solution.
How to protect my data on my cell phone ?
Of course, the anonymization of data aims at ensuring the respect of the privacy of their owners. However, you can further limit the risks involved in the collection and use of your personal information by taking action at your level.
The setting of the geolocation
How to protect your personal data on your smartphone and prevent it from being used without your knowledge ? The first thing to do is to set the geolocation. It is important to note that this feature is used by nearly 30% of mobile applications. However, it allows to identify the habits of smartphone users, such as their daily routes, the restaurant they prefer to go to, etc.
If you don’t want your private data to be used for commercial purposes, you should disable geolocation whenever it is not needed. Here are the steps to follow for Android:
- In ” Settings “Go to ” Security and privacy ” ;
- Click on ” Location data ” ;
- Drag the ” Access to location information “To deactivate the functionality.
With a device that runs on the iOS mobile operating system:
- Go to ” Settings ” ;
- Click on ” iCloud ” ;
- Press ” Locate my iPhone ” ;
- Enter the password corresponding to your Apple ID;
- Click on ” Disable “.
The use of encrypted messaging
To secure your private exchanges, the use of a protected messaging using end-to-end encryption is essential. In addition to WhatsApp, you have other options to protect your personal data:
- Signal, a messaging application available on Android and iOS ;
- Silence, an SMS encryption application available only for Android;
- Wickr, which allows to program the’Self-destruct sent messages;
- Wire, a solution mainly intended for companies, but which can also be used by individuals.
The adoption of a secure browser
Chrome is not your best ally for protecting your personal data. Instead, turn to Firefox if you are using a Android smartphone. To maximize data security, add extensions to this browser.
On his side, iOS doesn’t really offer much in the way of navigation customization. To remedy the impossibility of installing extensions, rely on the browser Brave.
On the other hand, the search engine must be well chosen. Qwant, DuckDuckGo and StartPage are clearly different from their counterparts in terms of user privacy protection.
How to make the most of’access to your smartphone ?
Here are some recommendations of the CNIL (National Commission on the Status of Women)’This is a good idea for anyone who is wondering how to protect their personal data and secure access to their smartphone:
- Do not save confidential information such as bank data, secret codes, etc. in your mobile;
- Keep the PIN code activated and replace the one proposed by default by avoiding to choose a sequence of numbers easy to guess;
- Enable automatic locking of the device after a certain time ;
- Keep a careful record of the IMEI code so that you can block the phone in case it is stolen or lost;
- Get an antivirus ;
- Do not download any data’applications from unknown sources ;
- Systematically check the data accessible to any new application installed;
- Carefully read the terms and conditions of use’use of’an application or a service before any installation or subscription.
Now you know how to protect your personal data on your smartphone. Do not hesitate to apply these tips !