c/data-privacy-confessions

My location history woke me up at 3am last week

I was showing my sister a photo from our trip to Austin and the map on Google Photos labeled every single stop, even that random gas station where I bought a Gatorade. That's when I realized my phone has been tracking me for 5 years without me ever turning it off. How do you all actually keep location services off without breaking your apps that need it, or do you just accept that the phone knows everything? lol

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amy154•2d ago

TIL my grocery store loyalty card is worth more to them than I thought

Ngl, I found out from a leaked internal doc last week that my local chain in Columbus sells my shopping data to health insurers for around $4 per customer profile. They use it to guess your habits, even stuff like if you buy junk food at 2am, and I had zero idea until I saw the numbers. Has anyone else dug into what their store actually does with that barcode scan history?

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the_piper•3d ago

Rant: my old coworker in Denver said to freeze my credit, I laughed at her

She was 62 and kept talking about her identity getting stolen in 2019, so I rolled my eyes for two years until my bank called about a $4,000 loan in my name last Tuesday. Now I'm waiting on three dispute forms and she's the only one who isn't saying 'I told you so.' Has anyone else had that older relative or friend who was actually right about the paranoid stuff?

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nina_johnson86•9d ago

Spent $150 on a VPN router, now my whole neighborhood knows my business anyway

Tbh I thought buying a VPN router for $150 would finally lock down my privacy after my neighbor's kid got into my unsecured wifi and changed my Netflix password. But then I found out my smart TV, doorbell cam, and even my thermostat are still phoning home with my data regardless of the VPN, because they don't route through it. So now I'm sitting here wondering if I wasted the money or if I just need to build a whole separate network for those devices. The router itself works fine for my laptop and phone, but the surveillance on my own house feels like it's coming from inside the house. Has anyone else dealt with this split between protecting your actual browsing versus all the IoT junk that spies on you anyway? How do you handle the gap without going full offline hermit?

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henry604•15d ago

Two years to realize my smart doorbell was leaking audio

I installed a smart doorbell back in 2021 without reading the fine print on the app's permissions. Turns out, the vendor was streaming raw mic audio to their servers for 'product improvement', not just when someone rang, but 24/7. My neighbor across the street in Minneapolis spotted a weird spike in my wifi traffic during a network audit, which took me another 3 months to verify with a packet sniffer. When I finally pulled the logs, my doorbell had transmitted over 400 hours of my front porch conversations, including a full argument with my landlord about a broken lock. I ripped it out that night and went back to a dumb wired bell, but the creepy part is I still don't know who had access to that audio or why. Has anyone else caught a 'smart' device doing way more than its box promised, and did you ever get a straight answer from the company?

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jake_owens•16d ago

Chose a burner phone over my main number for deliveries, now I regret it

My data got scraped from a food delivery app back in March and I started getting spam texts nonstop. So I switched all my delivery accounts to a $30 prepaid phone from Walmart, figured that would keep my real number safe. It worked for a week, but now the burner gets more junk than my main line does, and I still have to check both phones because the drivers call it. Had to ask my neighbor if I could use his address for a package since the prepaid carrier blocked my zip code, this whole thing is a headache. Anyone else try the burner route and end up with double the mess?

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henry604•22d ago

Chose a burner phone over my smart phone for 3 months in Austin

Back in May, I swapped my iPhone for a $40 flip phone to avoid location tracking and ad cross-referencing. It worked, but I missed maps and two-factor auth so badly I went back after 87 days. The irony is I now pay for a VPN and use a tracker blocker, which feels like more work than just being careful. Anyone else try a dumb phone and cave for a dumb reason?

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hayden709•22d ago

I finally stopped trusting my password manager after the Newark incident

I used the same LastPass vault for 4 years and thought it was bulletproof. Then I got a notice that someone tried to log into my banking from Newark, NJ, and they knew my master password prefix. That scared me straight, I moved everything to a hardware key and wrote my critical logins on paper in a locked drawer. Has anyone else gone backwards to analog after a near miss like this?

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josephl67•23d ago

Caught my own work laptop sharing my keystrokes and felt sick

Three months ago I noticed my employer's remote support tool was logging every keystroke I typed, even in personal emails on my lunch break. I set up a simple keylogger detector on my home PC to compare what was being sent, and sure enough, my work machine had been transmitting typed text to a third-party analytics server. I checked the settings and realized I'd clicked 'Allow full visibility' during onboarding without reading a single line of that popup. My boss told me it was 'standard for compliance' but nobody ever mentioned it in training or the handbook. I switched everything personal to my phone and now I'm paranoid about every login I do at my desk. Has anyone else found a sneaky default setting like this in their own workplace software?

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alicew68•24d ago

TIL my phone was listening through my smart TV remote

Last month I was telling my sister about fixing a leaky faucet, then my Amazon app showed me plumber ads within an hour. Checked the permissions on my TV remote app and it had mic access the whole time. Anyone else find hidden mics on devices they never expected?

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jordang32•25d ago

Found out my dog's microchip company sold location data to pet food ads

Was reading through the terms of service for the pet tracker collar I bought last month, and buried on page 14 it says they share location history with "marketing partners." Called them up and the rep confirmed it goes to at least 3 ad networks. My dog's walks are apparently worth something to someone. Anyone else catch their pet stuff doing this?

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charlienelson•25d ago

Dummy email trick that backfired on me hard

I thought I was being clever by using a throwaway email for my grocery store loyalty card. Two weeks later, they sent a coupon for baby formula to that address, and I'm a 50 year old guy with no kids. It made me realize these stores are still building profiles on you even with fake info. Has anyone else had a burner email lead to some creepy targeted marketing?

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the_piper•26d ago

That one Reddit comment that made me ditch Google Photos forever

Some user pointed out that Google scans your photos for things like faces and locations to train their AI. I mean, I knew that on some level. But they said "every selfie you take is just free training data for them" and something about that hit different. I moved everything to an external drive last weekend. 200GB of photos from the last 6 years. Took like 4 hours but honestly feels better not having my vacation pics be part of some machine learning project. Has anyone else just noped out of a service after one specific comment?

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alicew68•27d ago

Overheard my neighbor's kid tell his friend 'my dad says Alexa is always listening' and it hit me how different things are from when I grew up

Back in the 90s the only thing listening in on us was a nosy babysitter, not a device that's probably selling my shopping list to ad companies, has anyone else just stopped talking near their smart speaker?

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jennyp19•28d ago

A privacy researcher told me my fingerprint lock was a bad idea

I met someone at a privacy workshop in Austin last fall who straight up said biometric locks are basically giving away your unlock key forever. She pointed out that you can change a password but you can't change your fingerprint if it gets leaked. After that talk I switched from a fingerprint door lock to a regular keypad with a random 8 digit code I rotate every two months. Has anyone else dropped biometric stuff after hearing similar feedback?

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ellis.hayden•29d ago

I finally caught my smart TV spying on me in real time

Last month I was in my living room in Cleveland and I noticed my Samsung TV kept flickering the camera light. I checked the settings and saw it was sharing my viewing data with 14 different ad companies. I unplugged the whole thing and used a Wi-Fi analyzer on my phone to see what it was broadcasting. Turns out it was pinging servers in China every 90 seconds. I called their support line and the guy actually said "all smart TVs do this." That was the moment I built a pi-hole blocker for my whole house network. Has anyone else found a way to gut the spyware out of a modern TV without bricking it?

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william_jackson65•29d ago

My cousin laughed at me for using a password manager and now my accounts are fine

About 6 months ago my cousin told me password managers are just a way for companies to steal your data. He said I should just remember my passwords like a normal person. Well last week he got his email hacked because he used "password123" for everything. I stuck with Bitwarden and haven't had a single issue. Has anyone else had family give bad privacy advice?

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lilyg83•1mo ago

My dad's comment about my smart speaker changed how I see everything now

Me and my dad were fixing his laptop last week and he goes 'why do you let that Amazon thing listen to everything in your kitchen?' and I laughed it off at first. But then he told me he covers his phone camera with a piece of tape and I thought he was being paranoid. Now I'm looking at my google home and realizing I have no clue what it's actually recording or where that data goes. Has anyone else had a family member make you feel kinda stupid about your own privacy choices?

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victorb74•1mo ago

Paid $150 for a 'privacy VPN' that sold my browsing data to ad companies

I signed up for this VPN called ShieldSecure about six months ago. They claimed they never logged anything and your data was totally anonymous. Last week I saw a report from some security researcher that found ShieldSecure was actually selling aggregated browsing habits to third party ad networks. I checked my bank statements and I spent $150 on the yearly plan. Thats about 25 bucks a month for nothing but a slower connection and false promises. I canceled immediately but I doubt theyll refund me. Has anyone else gotten tricked by these fake privacy services?

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ben206•1mo ago

That time my aunt tried to protect her privacy by writing her passwords in a notebook labeled "PASSWORDS"

My aunt Jane came over last week and was bragging about how she never uses the same password twice. She said she memorizes all 47 of them like it's no big deal. Then she left her open notebook on my coffee table with "PASSWORDS" in Sharpie on the front. Inside was every login for her bank, email, and even her Netflix account. I asked if she worried about someone stealing it and she said "who would take a notebook?" Has anyone else had to explain to a family member that hiding stuff in plain sight isn't really hiding?

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terryf62•1mo ago

The moment I realized my smart speaker was always listening

Honestly it hit me last Tuesday when I was complaining to my friend about my dry scalp and 10 minutes later an ad for medicated shampoo popped up on my phone. Has anyone else had that creepy moment where you realize your devices are feeding off your private conversations?

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grace_knight70•1mo ago

Hot take: using a burner email for everything actually made my real inbox more dangerous

I started using a separate Gmail account for all my shopping and newsletter signups maybe 6 months ago. But last week I got a phishing email on my main account that mentioned a specific order from a site I only visited with the burner email. Turns out the burner email got compromised through a minor breach at a small retailer in Ohio, and the hackers linked it back to my main one through a shared recovery address. Has anyone else found that compartmentalizing your data just gives you a false sense of security while still leaving you exposed?

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hart.cora•1mo ago

Why does nobody talk about the exact stat on Facebook's shadow profiles?

I stumbled on this bit from a researcher at Princeton last week and it actually made me pause. They found that Facebook has data on over 5 billion people total, including people who never even made an account. That's 5 billion. I have an aunt who refuses to touch social media and I guarantee she's in there somewhere, tagged from someone else's photo or location check-in. The creepy part is they build these shadow profiles from your friends' contact lists, browsing habits, and even offline purchases. I couldn't believe a company could legally hold info on someone who never agreed to anything. How do you even opt out of something you didn't sign up for? Has anyone else dug into this and found a way to see if they're in someone else's shadow profile?

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felix824•1mo ago

Am I the only one who thinks password managers are overrated for personal use?

I spent like 6 hours last week setting up Bitwarden across all my devices after hearing everyone rave about it. But honestly, I keep hitting this weird glitch where it won't autofill on my phone for certain apps like my banking app. Tried reinstalling it twice and watched three YouTube tutorials, still takes me longer to log into stuff than just remembering my own passwords. I get that it's safer and all, but for a regular person like me with only like 20 logins, the hassle isn't worth it. My buddy Dave swears by it for his work accounts, but for my personal stuff, I feel like it just added a new layer of annoyance. Has anyone else struggled with these autofill issues on mobile?

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elizabeth900•1mo ago

My grandmother's landline fear from 1999 still haunts me

Back when I was 12, my grandma told me not to talk about Christmas presents on the phone because 'the operators might be listening.' I laughed then, but last month I found out my smart speaker recorded a private conversation about my sister's health issues and sent it to a random contact. It makes me wonder what she would say about all this tracking.

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