Declutter Your Data 2019

Happy 2019!

The beginning of a new year is a great time to check in with our daily practices and work on forming new healthy habits. Last year, members of Digital Tattoo took part in Mozilla’s Data Detox challenge, where we were given eight daily tasks to help us clean up our digital lives. You can read about our team members’ experiences here! 

Inspired by Mozilla’s continual efforts to help clean up your digital life, the Digital Tattoo team has created our own set of daily resolutions to help purge unwanted digital clutter in time for the start of a new year. Follow this eight day plan to start your year off with good digital hygiene. Through each of the eight recommendations, you can improve your sense of awareness of the components and accounts that make up your digital self. These first steps can help you take inventory of your online accounts and improve the management of your online identity.

Be sure to visit Mozilla’s Data Detox website to learn even more ways to take control of your online presence.

Day 1 – Get Off Unwanted Mailing Lists

Email services weed out a lot of spam, but you probably still get dozens of promotional messages and newsletters every day. Gmail helps by moving promotions and updates into separate views.If you don’t have this feature, click the cogwheel icon and select “Configure inbox.”

For a quieter life and cleaner inbox, it’s best to get off those mailing lists altogether. A free service called Unroll Me can help. Visit the website and your inbox will be scanned for promotional emails. You’ll then see a breakdown of all the mailing lists you’re on, with the option to unsubscribe with a single click. To cancel more than five lists, you have to post a link to Unroll Me on Facebook or Twitter, but it’s a small price to pay (and you can always delete it afterwards). As always, be sure to read the Terms and Agreements before using this service.

Day 2 – Check Connected Apps on Facebook

Facebook apps are another privacy concern – plus they can pester you with annoying notifications. To review which apps you have installed, open Facebook in a desktop browser, click the dropdown arrow at the top right of the window and select “Settings”. Then, in the page that opens, click “Apps and websites” in the left-hand panel. You’ll now see all your connected apps; click on one to see what personal information they can access, and to choose whether or not each one can send you notifications.

Click the “X” next to an app’s icon to remove it from your Facebook profile. Tweeters can similarly check which apps are connected to their Twitter account: open your Twitter timeline in a desktop browser, then click your user icon in the top right.Select Settings and Privacy, then click Apps in the left-hand column. 

Day 3 – Check If Your Online Accounts Have Been Compromised

In 2018 alone, 8% of the world was affected by data breaches, glitches and cases of internal data abuse. This affected well-known companies that may possess your information, including Marriott Hotels, Equifax, Facebook, Uber, among others. It is important to check the status of the companies that store critical information about you, such as investment companies, airlines, hotels, and online stores. Information like your social security number, passport number, credit card number, name, address, and e-mail may be necessary information to receive service, but it is critically important to regularly check if the status of any of these companies have been compromised.

Here are a few websites that search sources of data breaches – including Pastebin, individual leakers, and the dark web – and tells you if your accounts have been compromised [1]. Pastebin is a website that has gained notoriety as being a favoured tool for hackers to share leaked passwords and account details [2].

Have I Been Pwned?
BreachAlarm
Hacked E-mails
Have I Been Sold?

Day 4 – Delete Compromised / Unused Accounts

Over the years, you have probably signed up with dozens of online services that you no longer use. It’s a good idea to close these accounts; not only will this ensure that you don’t get hit with unexpected fees or marketing messages, it will also reduce the risk of your personal information being leaked in the future.

Deleting dozens of old accounts individually can be a chore, however. Account Killer is a free service that can help you quit hundreds of popular services with a few clicks. Simply type in the name of a website – or browse the complete list provided – and you’ll see a colour-coded button. For “white-listed” services, Account Killer provides a link directly to the relevant deletion page. “Black-listed” accounts don’t provide an easy removal option, but Account Killer will provide an email address which you can contact to request deletion.

Day 5 – Change Your Passwords on Remaining Accounts

After you have reduced or simplified your list of online accounts, you now have an inventory of the websites and companies that constitute your digital identity. Today, we recommend going through your digital identity inventory and changing your passwords for each account. Never use the same password for more than one account. The best practice is to keep your passwords separated and offline. However, don’t put all your eggs in one basket and store your passwords in an easy to reach place, such as an unlocked drawer. Be sure to keep each password in a safe and secure location.

Choosing new passwords for your accounts may be a mentally taxing activity.However, manually choosing a different password for each account increases the security of your digital identity overall, as intruders may only gain partial access to your information. When creating a new password, keep in mind the following best practices:

1.   Use at least 10 characters
2.   Include spaces if allowed
3.   Include special characters like ASCII or Unicode if allowed
4.   Avoid using properly spelled words
5.   Combine letters, numbers, and symbols to create passphrases (e.g. D1g!t@l_ta2)

Day 6 – Audit Permissions on your Mobile

Even if there’s plenty of space free on your smartphone, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on which apps can access your personal information, or do costly things such as make phone calls or send text messages. On iOS you can easily check which apps have access to what under Settings > Privacy. To audit the permissions used by a specific app, open Settings, scroll down and tap on its name [3].

Android users can go to Settings > Apps, then tap the cogwheel icon to access App Permissions. Here you’ll see a breakdown of permission types – such as Calendar, Camera, Contacts and so forth. Tap on any one to see which apps have access to those permissions; you can revoke permissions by tapping the switch next to an app’s name [4]. For more information on web tracking on your mobile and browsing enabled devices, check out our tutorial content.

Day 7 – Disable Push Notifications on Remaining Apps

Push notifications are alerts for a application sent to the home screen of your smartphone. These may appear as a banner on the top of your screen, bubbles on the corner of an app’s icon, or as pop-ups on your lock screen. A study in 2016 by Kim et al. analyzed the effects of the visual and auditory alerts generated by push notifications on subjects that were at risk of smartphone addiction. They tested if push notifications impacted the performance of participants during a task. They discovered that these alerts affected task performance for all individuals, regardless of risk of smartphone addiction. However, push notifications had additional effects on individuals at risk of smartphone addiction, causing decreased ability “even during subsequent task performance” (Kim et al., 2016).

As a result, on this day of the declutter challenge, we recommend that you turn off and disable push notifications for most, if not all of your apps. This way, you can check for notifications when you choose to, instead of when alerts tell you to. For other ways to stay tranquil in your digital life, check out our tutorial content. 

Android 8:

In Android 8, notifications are organized by categories, so you are able to turn off push notifications for each type of alert for each application. However, this makes customizing alerts a time-consuming process.

Settings > Notifications > App > Categories (select one) > Off

iOS 12:

Similarly, iOS provides users with the ability to customize their notifications for individual applications. Alerts come in the form of banners, badges, and in the lock screen.

Settings > Notifications > App > Turn Everything Off

Day 8 – Audit the Content on Remaining Accounts

On the last day of decluttering, it’s time to take a deep dive into each of the remaining online accounts that you possess. Going through the older content of your social media, forum postings, and even shopping accounts can give yourself the opportunity to reflect on previous behaviour, and remove information that may leave you vulnerable.

Congratulations! Now that you have taken an inventory of the accounts that make up your online profile, we hope that it is now easier to manage and keep track of your digital identity. Let us know how this detox went for you, the challenges you may have encountered, or any surprising results you may have found in the discussion box below!

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research for informed decisions.

Written by: Jason Chung and Elyse Hill

Edited by: Defne Inceoglu