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Privacy

How to use Alexa’s new privacy features on your Amazon Echo

Maybe you don’t want others to know the conversations you’ve had with Alexa throughout the day. Fortunately, two new Echo privacy features make it easier to erase your voice history, once and for all.

The first feature helps you erase all conversations you’ve ever had with Alexa. So if you’ve got voice data that goes back to 2018, you can completely wipe it. All you have to say is “Alexa, delete everything I’ve said.”

If that doesn’t work, you can also manage this in the Alexa app by going to More > Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History > filter by All History > and select Delete all my recordings. A message will appear asking you to confirm you want to proceed. Select Delete. read more

How to change which apps can access your location on Android

It’s important to make sure apps aren’t abusing permissions to protect your privacy.

Android apps are required to ask for permission to access your location. Beginning in Android 11, you can even grant apps one-time access to your location. This means that you don’t have to worry about apps grabbing your location after you leave the app.

Regardless of how well you may monitor permissions, it’s a good idea to check up on which apps can access your location every once in a while.

First, open the Settings menu on your Android phone or tablet by swiping down from the top of the screen (once or twice depending on your device’s manufacturer) to open the notification shade, then select the gear icon. read more

What do the orange and green dots mean in iOS 14?

Following the new iOS 14 software update, which was rolled out to Apple products including iPhones and iPads around the world on Wednesday, September 16, many users have been quick to noticed new indicators in the status bar, in the right-hand notch, and are wondering what those are for.

These new status symbols show up as orange and green dots or circles that appear above the signal strength indicator.

It turns out these dots are actually informational indicators that help reassure and protect your privacy. On MacBooks and iMacs, Apple has a physical green LED that sits next to the webcam. Although they appear next to the cellular signal and Wi-Fi status indicators, they have nothing to do with network connectivity. read more

How to Turn Off COVID-19 Exposure Notifications in iOS

Apple recently introduced its first version of exposure notification API. The API has been designed to allow apps developed by public health authorities to notify users who come into contact with COVID-19 victims. The Exposure Notification will let a user know if they have been exposed to the virus. The beta was recently released and if you have installed the latest beta on your iPhone or iPad, you can make use of the feature right now.

How you can toggle off Exposure Notifications in iOS 13.5.
If you’re concerned about privacy, Apple says there is no personally identifiable information that will be shared with the public health authorities including location data. Since the exposure notification feature is enabled by default, you can always opt-out of it once you have upgraded to iOS 13.5, but you can disable Exposure Notifications in Settings. read more

How To Use Amazon’s Echo Smart Speaker without Giving Up Your Privacy

2018 saw a nearly doubling of the percentage (41%) of households that have some form of voice-activated speaker, with the vast majority being Amazon’s Echo.

Alexa’s skills

One of the reasons Amazon’s Echo is so popular is that you can expand its capabilities by enabling skills, which are like apps for your smartphone. There are over 60,000 skills currently available, and the number continues to grow each day.

One of the potential trade-offs when you start enabling skills is that because they’re typically third-party tools, you can be sharing personal information such as street address, phone number or email address with those third-parties without even knowing it. read more

Telegram Update Adds New Accessibility Features and Privacy Improvements

Telegram has added accessibility feature support – TalkBack on Android and VoiceOver on iOS. With them, blind and visually impaired users can hear spoken feedback so you can use the messaging app.

Telegram’s latest update will also allow you to ‘unsend’ both sent and received messages without the previous time limit of forty-eight hours.

The company claims this is part of their continued efforts to improve user privacy. After introducing end-to-end encryption in 2013, it now wants to give users complete control over their conversations. That includes being able to ‘unsend’ or delete messages. read more

Apple Launches FaceTime ‘Eavesdropping’ Bug?

Apple has acknowledged a flaw in its FaceTime software that allowed for brief eavesdropping, even if the recipient did not pick up.
In some cases the target iPhone could send video without the receiver’s knowledge.
The company said it had developed a fix and an update would be rolled out this week.

Apple’s status page shows it has disabled the ability for users to make group calls on FaceTime.
The flaw, first revealed by the 9to5Mac blog, appears to occur when both users are running version 12.1 of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS, or newer. It also affects Mac users when they are called from an iPhone. read more

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