IntelligentIT: 2022

Friday, July 1, 2022

FCC Calls for the Removal of Tik Tok Over Privacy Concerns

Discussion over TikTok's privacy concerns to come a head as the social media platform is scrutinized for questionable data collection and storage practices. Apple and Google have been asked by the U.S. FCC Commissioner to remove TikTok from their app stores because the video sharing app harvests data such as biometrics, metadata, browsing history, etc., and that data is accessed by the Chinese government. Check out the video below:

Monday, January 31, 2022

Want To See What Amazon Knows About You? (Here's How)

If you were to take a guess at how much data Amazon has about you what would your guess be? A couple of megabytes worth? A gigabyte or two? The answer will depend on how much Amazon has permeated your private space. That means if you only access Amazon's site to make purchases here and there, the data collect from you might be miniscule compared to a person with an Amazon Echo yelling commands at Alexa every few minutes.

If you'd like to see just how much data has been collected by Amazon via their website, Alexa and other products, just follow the steps below. A brief disclaimer, things may become a little creepy as Alexa users will be able to hear their own voice issuing commands and possibly bits of conversations they've had around Alexa. Enjoy!

Scroll towards the bottom of the screen look for the heading "Let Us Help You" and click on "Help".

On the next screen scroll down to the "All help topics" section and select "Security & Privacy" and then click "More in Security & Privacy".

On the next screen under the "Security and Privacy" section, click on the "How Do I Request My Data" link.

The link will take you to the "Request Your Personal Information" page. Here you will click on the "Request My Data" link.

On the "Request My Data" page you'll click on the dropdown menu where you can select the type of data you would like to request. Here you'll click the "Select Data Category" dropdown menu and select "Request All Your Data" and then click the "Submit Request" button.

After this you should see a "Data Request Creation" screen notifying you that an email has been sent to you. Open your email click, locate the email and click on the link and your request will be processed.

You will receive a final confirmation and depending on the amount of data collected you will receive notification that your data is ready for your viewing.