How is our Personal Data Collected?

• Unfortunately, Data Breaches and Scams allow bad actors to get our personal information and sell it to the highest bidder. We can not control this on the front end, but we can request that our data is removed after the breach. See some options below.
• When we click on a fraudulent email link or pop-ups on our devices, the hacker can get access to our device and all of the information stored on the device — our contacts, financial information, browsing history, photos and more. Don’t click unless you are sure!
• When we give out personal information over the phone to scammers, they collect and use this information to trick us into providing even more personal data, and if we give out our login and password information, they can get into our accounts. This happens every day!
• When we allow Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to remain on 24/7, we are opening up our devices to hackers. There are a variety of tools the hackers use to track us and break-in to our connections that remain open, so we become an easy target.
• When we over-share on social media, we are providing information that a bad actor can use against us, to trick us into clicking on a bad link, or to fraud us. Be Cautious!

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

The profiles they collect are being used to target us in SCAMS, PHISHING ATTEMPTS AND Other nefarious schemes.

The more personal information they collect and store about our lives, the more they can use this against us — trick us into thinking they are a legitimate business (usually via phone or email), or even a friend or family member. AND with the new artificial intelligence tools available to the bad guys, they can even CLONE an image and voiceover of a loved one and trick us into thinking they are in trouble and need our financial help. This is usually done with a panic phone call.

Your settings on your devices matter! You may elect to turn-on or turn-off specific applications and choose the type of permissions you will allow.

When you purchase a new device, most all of the new models have access settings (Camera, Microphone, Photo Library, Location, Bluetooth, Contacts, etc.) automatically TURNED-ON. So, you have to manually reset and block these permissions to protect yourself! Does Belk or Amazon need access to your contacts, microphone, camera and photo gallery to deliver their products to you? NO! Do game apps need to know your Location or Photos to play the games? NO! I know this sounds crazy, but right now, that is the way it works. It is with hope, in the near future, we can convince our lawmakers to create more laws to protect our personal data from being collected, sold and used against us.

---

Data Removal Tools (Paid and Free Options)

---