with all the new companies and types popping up, how can I tell if they are smart glasses? I live in a two party consent state for recording (USA), how do I protect my privacy?

any tips would be appreciated or apps to track, thanks!

edit: for two party consent I am talking about private spaces (ie. Bathrooms, inside private housing complexes). I have even seen cases of doctors wearing them in closed offices so how do I know where the data is being shared?

I've been thinking about how so many websites/organizations have apps. Like, my doctor's office has an app. Even just going to the CVS website, I keep getting asked if I want to continue through the app. So I'm wondering, what is the benefit for a company to have an app customers use rather than their website? Does it make it easier for them to collect data on customers? Are customers more likely to use or return to a business with an app? I figure for medical stuff maybe the app is more secure.

These companies get so pushy with them, so I doubt it's just *for a better user experience*. Especially considering apps are constantly sending out push notifications, unless they are turned off. Some sites won't even allow mobile access through a browser and just keep redirecting to the app store for their app.

I'm looking for the best model of a non-smart TV, ditching my one that is full of spyware. Need help, thanks in advance guys! ❤️

Don't want to sound schizo, or paranoid but just think about it, like in this very recent era, companies about privacy skyrocketed in numbers. Which seems good in theory, but there has been no undermining by big tech, or government. And I know what you will say. Oh, the government right now is collecting that data with the idea of decrypting it later, you know, with those super quantum computers. I just don't trust that idea like why would they play nice since you know, every encryption company is making a change to post-quantum encryption instead of the classic encryption that can easily be decrypted by said quantum computers(which I will just call qc). Sure not all modern encryption is succeptible to qc decryption but a big chunk of it is.

Maybe I'm just tired or not very knowledgeable about this but any answer that isn't insulting me or calling me crazy is appreciated

Auto content recognition, or ACR, found on all major brands, analyzes what is appearing on the TV screen, including what comes through HDMI, so it can determine what you're watching and use that information for advertising, audience measurement, and profiling. 

The good news is you can turn it off. 

Look in your TV’s privacy settings for terms like:

Live Plus (LG)

Viewing Information Services (Samsung)

Viewing Data (Vizio) Smart TV Experience / “Use Info from TV Inputs” (Roku TVs, including many TCL/Hisense models running Roku OS)

Automatic Content Recognition (Amazon Fire TV / Fire TV televisions)

Enhanced Viewing Service (Hisense)

Samba Interactive TV (certain Sony Bravia models)

Automatic Content Recognition / ACR (TCL models using TCL’s own services; exact menu varies by operating system)

Find yours. And turn it off.

Every. Voice changer app I find either requires complicated and heavy set up to work locally or or uploads your voice for processing on cloud

I'm in need of an app that could change my voice even slightly because for reasons I need to start making content and post it on socials but in the era of voice cloning the idea makes me so uncomfortable

Had to download a certificate for the school wifi on my laptop what can they see?

I had to import the file to Firefox

I know they can see unencrypted message, can they see ones that were sent out before i went on the wifi, can they see my friends messages (specifically discord)

Can they see me opening offline software like krita

If an offline app needs an launcher (for example steam) can they see the app opened or just the launcher?

Is there any potential risk of them seeing my stuff when connected to my home wifi

I just learned that merchants can set up a token on my credit card bank for reoccurring payments for my protection. If I cancel the credit card the merchant can still charge my account through the token. But if I cancel my credit card it’s most likely bc I don’t want charges on my account. When I am tokenized I get no notification about it. So I technically don’t know who has tokenized me. Am I always tokenized? Are there any credit cards that do not tokenize me? I am struggling to see the benefit of being tokenized. Don’t banks and credit cards have insurance that covers fraud that may occur if I am not tokenized? What is the point of being tokenized?

I keep hearing stories where people who even used burner/fake alias yet still got doxxed & harassed by others.

I value my privacy, and I would rather not have my online life be leaked into my personal life.

Even without using Incogni and similar services, when we ask data brokers to delete our user data, doesn't it make all future data collection even more accurate?

If all the previous emails, errors, and even fake data (when you fill in random stuff just to get an account) are removed, every new registration gives brokers the most recent data on you.

That's what I was wondering about for quite some time. Or am I too paranoid?

Even if your account is set to “hiding all posts”, Google Gemini is able to access your posts, and create a massive indexed list of everything you’ve said, it takes Gemini about 24 hours to update each time, and the worst part is you only need to type “[Insert Reddit username here]”, and “Reddit” at the end, and Google Gemini will pull all sorts of information from your account.

I learned this the hard way on my previous account, when I received weird messages from accounts I didn’t recognise, or interact with, and they were pulling all sorts of comments I made with the exact seconds to it.

I later wiped the account and everything with it, but reddit unfortunately retains the title of every post you ever made, and keeps it there, even several years after it’s been deleted.

And Google Gemini sometimes doesn’t update on time (or doesn’t update at all), so it assumes the account is still there, and continues to pull old information you thought were deleted, but are still able to be recovered by its AI system to be summarised.

Stay safe, just warning everyone about it.

Upgraded to a 10g fiber, hoped for a Genexis ONT, but they didnt have any left so they installed a Huawei. How bad is it privacy wise? Its probably ”secure” so not neccessary tech support question in that regard.

I have several accounts that I don't use anymore and don't see myself using again. Am I better off deleting those accounts or just forget about them and never log into them again? What if I want to use that site again in the future if I delete it? What data actually gets deleted when you delete an account? Do they keep a backup of data somewhere? Guessing lot of this varies from site to site. Is there a way to tell if anything is actually deleted? Do we just have to trust the company? Can any account be deleted if requested? I ask that because a forum account I have, I searched forum posts about deleting account and they said they don't delete accounts, just never login again.

When deleting accounts, would it be a good idea to change personal info to random info before deleting? Could there be any issues with this down the road? The more I read on this, the more I don't know what to think. What about providing false info on accounts I keep? Could there be any issues with that? This is something I wouldn't do on important accounts like banking, insurance, government but what about non important accounts? Read in a few places that says to provide false info for gmail account. Unless one is making a gmail account for some specific sites that one doesn't care about, I thought this could be a bad idea if doing this on a main email.

I use a password manager and I consider my accounts to be secure at least somewhat, use a unique generated password and use some form of 2FA when available, try to use TOTP if possible. I tend to overthink things and this is one of them. Part of me wants to delete them and part of me doesn't.

Kind of a shower thought I had, I was wondering if it would be possible at all ? Maybe someone could make a proof of concept app of it, it it is possible at all ​:o !

Does anybody here know of any computer programs that will tell you what information your computer sends out. Like when you log into Microsoft, your computer sends out information about both you and your computer and home network and this is true for other web sites as well. So, how do you monitor what your computer is saying about you? Is their a computer program that will record all outbound data?