A Quick and Easy Privacy Recipe

I am making haddock tonight. I have never cooked with haddock before so I decided to look up recipes online for one that seemed interesting to me. I chose one with fennel and tomatoes. I don’t like the anise flavor of raw fennel, but I do like what it turns into when roasted.

So that got me thinking, do I have a recipe for my privacy online? Maybe. Let’s take the example of setting up a new laptop.

Ingredients:

Password manager - 1

Email address & account information - 3-4

Backup hard drive - 1

Privacy enhancing web browser - 1

Multi-factor authentication - many

Sh!t I Can’t Remember book - 1

Step 1: Gather together all your ingredients. Turn on laptop and set up unique laptop password. Memorize it or write it down on your Sh!t I Can’t Remember book.

Step 2: Set up emails, add multi-factor authentication on each email account, ideally with an option that isn’t based on a text message to my phone number but, if that’s all that is available, then do that.

Step 3: Download preferred web browser with privacy options. Currently, I am using the Brave browser with the DuckDuckGo search engine.

Step 4: Download password manager. If I don’t have one, choose one and then start to store all unimportant passwords and associated emails to the password manager. Important passwords i.e. the accounts with the most critical information, go in the Sh!t I Can’t Remember book. Connect back-up drive and make sure it runs. If you already had a back-up drive, connect it so it downloads all your data from your previous laptop. Set up a reminder (like a kitchen timer!) to run back-ups daily or weekly.

* You may want to switch step 2 for after step 3 if you access your email through a web browser.

I have been cooking for 30+ years and the one thing that I have learned is that if you don’t read a recipe from start to finish before you start cooking, then you might not have a successful dish. Have you ever forgotten to add salt while the vegetables were sautéing? Then you know that even if you add it later, it still doesn’t taste as good.

The same can be said of privacy and security. In my opinion, doing it right from the start has much better results and costs you a lot less, in terms of lost data and violations of your right to privacy, in the long run. Just like fennel tastes better when roasted, your control over your privacy is better when you are organized.

If you are interested in learning more about privacy and security, there are some events happening. At the end of May is Solove’s annual conference. ClearOPS is also hosting a webinar on NY Shield Act. The Rise of Privacy Tech is hosting a conference in June. That’s all I got today.

I am a lawyer, which makes me an advocate. Now, I am an advocate for individual privacy rights. In today’s business culture, the burden of any data breach is borne by the individual, even though the fault is not theirs to bear. I aim to change that by improving the system from within.

ClearOPS is my company. ClearOPS is a privacy tech company. I was recently the guest on another podcast! Listen here.

You are the best, Caroline

P.S. If you like this post, would you mind watching, or sending to someone who likes watching Minecraft videos, my son’s YouTube channel? His name is SlowGamePlayz.

None of this constitutes legal advice. None of my opinions reflect the opinions of my employer. All disclosures apply. All disclosures are my own. Don’t sue me. I am just trying to be helpful. Small print is done on purpose.