Free tool reveals the true cost of ‘free’ online services — your data and identity
July 2019 by Marc Jacob
Cyber security provider F-Secure has released a free new online tool that helps expose the true cost of using some of the web’s most popular free services—the abundance of data that has been collected about them by Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon Alexa, Twitter and Snapchat. F-Secure Data Discovery Portal sends users directly to the often hard-to-locate resources provided by each of these tech giants that allow users to review their data, securely and privately.
More than half of adult Facebook users, 54%, adjusted how they use the site in the wake of the scandal that revealed Cambridge Analytica had collected data without users’ permission.* But the biggest social network in the world continues to grow, reporting 2.3 billion monthly users at the end of 2018.**
F-Secure is offering the tool as part of the company’s growing focus on identity protection that secures consumers before, during, and after data breaches. By spreading awareness of the potential costs of these “free” services, the Data Discovery Portal aims to make users aware that securing their data and identity is more important than ever.
A recent F-Secure survey found that 54% of internet users over 25 worry about someone hacking into their social media accounts.*** Data is only as secure as the networks of the companies that collect it, and the passwords and tactics used to protect our accounts. While the settings these sites offer are useful, they cannot eliminate the collection of data.
However, there is no silver bullet for users when it comes to permanently locking down security or hiding it from the services they choose to use.