November 29, 2021

How to make your mobile device more secure

From family photos to intimate texts, your phone holds an infinite amount of personal data. How do you keep it private? Privacy advocate Dan Arel shares some tips on how to make your mobile device more secure and p

While a lot of focus on mobile security and privacy has been placed on activists around the world attending protests, you don’t have to be a social or political activist to care about mobile phone privacy.

The truth is, keeping your mobile phone secure, and private is good practice for anyone. First and foremost, having your phone stolen could mean someone has access to your bank accounts, credit cards, emails, and many other account types. This is why you should have a long, complicated passkey to open your phone, use setting that automatically wipe your device after 10 failed login attempts, and for important applications such as credit card and banking info, ensure you’re not left logged in and must log in every time.

Following physically stealing your phone, knowing the apps you have installed are safe, legitimate, and trustworthy is a good step as well. This is something you can routinely do to ensure you have a safe and clean device.

I am an iOS user so most of what I will describe will sound most familiar to Apple users, but I will provide links to Android tutorials as well. No worries. Most of what I am describing is available on all modern mobile devices.

Personally, I like to regularly evaluate the apps I have installed. Go through your apps and ask yourself: when the last time you used it was and if you still need it? Before the COVID-19 pandemic I traveled often for work so I had apps like Southwest Airlines and Lyft app installed. Now, I don’t need them, and they can be deleted. Also, sometimes maybe you have an app that has become outdated is no longer maintained. Unmaintained apps lead to security vulnerabilities and exploits.

Now, one thing most often overlooked is your lock screen. By default, devices generally show you a preview of your messages and emails on the lock screen. However, imagine a scenario in which you’ve done everything mentioned above, and yet your phone is still stolen. Sensitive information is being sent via text or email. And, now, the person in possession of your phone is able to look at all this data.

On iOS, head to Settings > Notifications.

On Android, head to Settings > Privacy.

And while I won’t recommend a brand, I will also recommend you look into privacy screen protectors for your phone. These privacy screens block what’s on your screen to anyone not looking directly at your phone. That person next to you on public transit just sees a black screen.

Lastly, you’re not taking privacy seriously on your device if you’re not using privacy respecting services such as Startpage as your default search engine.

On iOS, if you’re a Safari user, you can follow these simple directions on your phone to make Startpage your easy to use search engine of choice.

You can also install a third-party browser such as Firefox and make Startpage your default search engine right inside the browser, and thankfully in iOS 14 and above, you can actually make Firefox your default browser as well. Learn how to make Startpage the default search engine on Firefox here.

On your Android device, you can also add Startpage to your home screen by following these directions.

And like iOS you can also install Firefox and follow these simple instructions to make Startpage your default search engine.

With these steps, you not only achieve privacy and security on your device even if lost or stolen but you’re also increasing your privacy when the device is in hand by changing your default search engine away from a big tech non-private search engine to Startpage.

For more tips on securing your device, check out these handy guides for iOS, and Android.


Dan Arel is a privacy and digital rights activist, founder and curator of ThinkPrivacy.ch, as well as an award-winning journalist, and best-selling author. His work has appeared in the Huff Post, OpenSource, Hacker Noon, Time Magazine, and more. You can follow him on Twitter @danarel.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Startpage.

 

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