Privacy Files

In this latest episode of Privacy Files, Rich and Sarah take on their most ambitious investigation thus far. From wearable technology and DNA analysis for ancestry research, to at-home blood tests and scheduling doctors' visits online, people now freely share more of their medical information than at any other time in human history. And along with the rise in the use of technology to analyze the details of our intimate medical history comes the increase in opportunities for abuse of that sensitive data. While the topic of healthcare privacy is impossible to fully unpack in only one episode, Rich and Sarah provide a thorough introduction to the topic. And there's little doubt, there will likely be many more episodes in the future addressing various aspects of this highly involved subject. To kick off the show, Rich talks about the recent news of Amazon launching a new prescription drug service called RxPass, giving subscribers access to more than 50 commonly prescribed medications for a flat monthly fee of $5. It's just one more example of Amazon's strategic goal of dominating the entire healthcare supply chain--and acquiring the rich personal data that accompanies that powerful position. Rich then digs into the groundbreaking investigation by The Markup discovering that 33 of Newsweek's "Top 100 Hospitals in America" were using Meta's Pixel Tracker, which was sending private medical information back to Facebook without patient consent. Sarah then dives into wearable technology, talking about the Apple Watch and how it can track detailed information on sleep, ovulation cycles, heart health, and general fitness levels, and the implications if that data falls into the wrong hands. Sarah also addresses how blood samples are taken for newborn screening. Why is it mandatory? Where does this blood go? How long is it stored? What is it used for beyond the primary reason given? To close out the episode, Rich talks about DNA used for ancestry research and at-home blood tests that are used to screen for genetic predispositions to disease, metabolic sensitivities and food allergies. Sarah takes us home by looking at the types of information we share with insurance companies. Links Referenced: https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/06/16/facebook-is-receiving-sensitive-medical-information-from-hospital-websites https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/family-resources-education/health-wellness-and-safety-resources/helping-hands/newborn-screen-blood-test https://www.cbsnews.com/news/newborn-baby-blood-tests-privacy-concerns/ https://transmitter.ieee.org/wearables-and-privacy-what-you-need-to-know/ https://wjlta.com/2020/11/07/is-your-personal-health-still-personal-privacy-issues-with-wearable-tech/ OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

In this episode of Privacy Files, Rich and Sarah celebrate Data Privacy Week. Running January 22-28, 2023, this annual event, sponsored by the National Cybersecurity Alliance, is designed to raise awareness about online privacy. The mission is two-fold: help individuals understand that they have the power to manage their data and educate organizations on why it's important to respect their users' data. We kicked off the episode by covering the recent T-Mobile data breach where a hacker compromised the data of 37 million customers. This is the eighth time T-Mobile has been hacked since 2018. Data Privacy Week commemorates the January 28, 1981 signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection. Last year, the National Cybersecurity Alliance extended Data Privacy Day into Data Privacy Week. We cover how every online activity leaves a data trail linking back to you and your personally identifiable information. Then we give you a series of simple solutions to better protect your data. Both Rich and Sarah tell some personal stories that underscore the prevalence of data collection in our everyday lives. Then we wrap up the episode by talking about how MySudo, the world's only all-in-one privacy app, can help individuals live more privately, and how organizations can leverage privacy to acquire more customers and make them loyal. Links Referenced: https://staysafeonline.org/programs/data-privacy-week/ OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

In this episode, Rich and Sarah tackle Part 2 of their deep dive into the mysterious and manipulative world of surveillance capitalism by reviewing perhaps the most well-known documentary on the subject: The Social Dilemma. It's a shocking look into how Big Tech attempts to manipulate and influence us--all told through the words of Silicon Valley tech experts. To enhance the discussion, Maddie and Chrysoula join Rich and Sarah in studio to provide a Gen Z perspective on the documentary and topic. And it's truly an amazingly unique perspective considering both have never known a world without the internet. You will learn how the "attention economy" works and the methods tech giants like Google and Facebook employ to keep users engaged and collect voluminous amounts of data. All of this data is used to build sophisticated behavioral models that predict future behavior. These predictions are sold to advertisers who are practically guaranteed success. You will quickly see why these platforms are "free." If the product is free, you are the product. One of the creepiest techniques underlying surveillance capitalism is the psychological technique called positive intermittent reinforcement. In a nutshell, Big Tech builds addictive platforms that repeatedly reward users with positive reinforcement to trigger the production of dopamine, a chemical released within the brain that makes people feel good. By engaging on these platforms, users are sharing mountains of behavioral data that paint a clear picture of their lives, from political beliefs to deep-seated thoughts. This is an episode that will leave you ruminating for days, if not weeks. Documentary Link: https://vimeo.com/462049229 OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

In this episode, Sarah returns to the podcast to help Rich dive deep into a review of VPRO's landmark documentary: Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is the core of the business model for today's Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook. It's not about your email address, phone number or social security. Surveillance capitalism is all about collecting voluminous amounts of rich, behavioral data on platform users to develop models that predict future behavior. These predictions can in turn be sold to advertisers that are looking to reach niche markets. Predictive models developed by Google and Facebook are so sophisticated that they can practically guarantee advertiser success. The key here is that Big Tech is selling predictions, not data. In fact, the models are so advanced that they can even be used to manipulate users' behavior. Shoshana Zuboff is a Harvard Professor and author of the groundbreaking book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. She has been researching the area of surveillance capitalism for years and asserts that in order for surveillance capitalism to work, it must happen through stealth and obfuscation. In other words, users of platforms like Google Search and Facebook must be so hooked on using these products that they don't see how the monetization model works. The more engaged users are, the more behavioral data that can be collected, and the more precise those predictive models can be. We hope this episode will spur some thinking about what type of personal data is truly valuable to Big Tech and get you to reevaluate your own use of various web-based products. And don't forget, as it has been said many times, "If the product is free, you are the product!" Link to watch documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

We're hearing a lot about the metaverse these days. So far, the technology seems more hype than anything. Even though market adoption is low, it's evident privacy will be an even larger concern in this emerging world than today's "flat" internet. In this episode of Privacy Files, Brian Tillman (Mr. Metaverse) fills in for Sarah to provide his perspective on the overarching privacy concerns in this immersive virtual world. With Mark Zuckerberg and Meta leading the industry in developing metaverse technology with Horizon Worlds, and given Zuckerberg's poor track record on data privacy, it's only natural to be concerned about users' personal data. Perhaps the most significant privacy concern in the metaverse is the collection of biometric data. This includes voice and facial recognition, iris scanning, eye tracking, and the analysis of unique body movement patterns that are unique to an individual. Rich and Brian also discuss the scope of the metaverse and cover some interesting applications of the technology. Articles Referenced: https://www.makeuseof.com/reasons-why-no-one-cares-about-metaverse/ https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/15/23405811/meta-horizon-worlds-losing-users-report https://nypost.com/2022/10/25/mark-zuckerbergs-terrible-metaverse-shredded-by-oculus-founder-its-not-fun/ https://cybernews.com/editorial/metaverse-is-causing-meta-to-lose-billions/ OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

Special guest appearance by Anonyome Labs' UX designer Brian Tillman. 80% of people surveyed value their data privacy more than keeping social media platforms free to use. Yet, 72% aren’t willing to pay to protect their privacy. To know where you're going, you must know where you've been. In this episode of Privacy Files, Sarah and Rich examine how variables such as generational cohort membership and individual life experiences shape how people view privacy and their approach to protecting personal information. Are people altering their personal behaviors to achieve greater privacy? Or is society increasingly becoming more comfortable living life like an open book? We also welcome a special in-studio guest to provide a unique prospective from a younger Millennial. Articles Referenced: https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/security/how-much-is-my-data-worth/ https://bigthink.com/the-present/data-privacy-statistics/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilsahota/2020/10/14/privacy-is-dead-and-most-people-really-dont-care/?sh=4905552b7b73 https://hbr.org/2020/02/the-era-of-antisocial-social-media OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies  turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

75% of Americans want to live more privately, but just don't know where to begin. In our third episode of Privacy Files, Sarah and Rich present some simple ways to live your digital life a little more privately without being extreme. In other words, there are some easy changes you can make today to protect your personal information without turning the effort into a full-time job. Did you know a SIM-based cell phone number can reveal almost as much about you (if not more) as a social security number? By sharing your personal cell number with only your close friends and family, you can start breaking the link to your personal data. When transacting with merchants, try using a VoIP number instead. Do you shop online? Banks can legally sell your transaction information to advertisers and data brokers. Instead of using a personal credit card, use a payment service like PayPal or a MySudo virtual card. Other low-effort tips include using a password manager (use a different password for every account login), disabling location tagging on social media posts, activating two-factor authentication (2FA), employing a virtual private network (VPN) and turning off data sharing for apps. OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

In this episode, Sarah and Rich address the reality for those living their lives online: The definition of privacy depends on who you talk to. We tackle the often nebulous term of "privacy" from the perspective of what we like to call a "normie." Touching on many hot-button issues in the privacy space, we cover the big issues like smart devices, smartphone tracking, social media usage and online advertising. By explaining the risk exposures, we make it easy for you to decide what's important to you. This is another primer episode to get you warmed up as the newest podcast in privacy prepares to start opening up "case files" and examine in more detail the most pressing privacy dilemmas plaguing digital life. OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com

In this first episode of Privacy Files, co-hosts Sarah and Rich lay the foundation for what this podcast is about. We provide you with an overview of the most common data privacy issues affecting society today and give you a sneak peek into upcoming episodes. Our podcast is about making privacy approachable for everyone. It's not about extreme privacy. You won't hear any talk about "how to disappear online." The topics we discuss on Privacy Files are intended for a wide audience of people who are just like us. We like living our lives online but we don't want to leave our lives online. OUR SPONSORS: Anonyome Labs - Makers of MySudo and Sudo Platform. Take back control of your personal data. www.anonyome.com MySudo - The world's only all-in-one privacy app. Communicate and transact securely and privately. Talk, text, email, browse, shop and pay, all from one app. Stay private. www.mysudo.com Sudo Platform - The cloud-based platform companies turn to for seamlessly integrating privacy solutions into their software. Easy-to-use SDKs and APIs for building out your own branded customer apps like password managers, virtual cards, private browsing, identity wallets (decentralized identity), and secure, encrypted communications (e.g., encrypted voice, video, email and messaging). www.sudoplatform.com