The Oxford dictionary defines the word ‘privacy’ as a ‘state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people’ and ‘the state of being free from public attention’. Unfortunately today, one’s online existence can hardly be qualified as private. With the boundaries between everyone’s real and virtual lives blurring, it is imperative that privacy be guarded with utmost diligence — something that a lot of us tend to ignore, until of course, it comes back to bite us in the rear.
Ghostery
Downloading this app lets you block tracking from companies you’d prefer left you alone. The app lists details of who’s been tracking you, provides further information about them, and links you to their privacy policy and opt-out options. It includes cookie/cache clearing and enables searching through DuckDuckGo. Its use is anonymous and unless you participate in Ghostrank — to share ‘aggregated, non-personal, statistical’ data — it does not receive any data from you.
TextSecure
Remember those days of passing notes in class that were so heavily encrypted that nobody except you and your bestie understood the message? Say hi to its digital cousin. The app, a private replacement for your default texting app, protects your communication to another TextSecure user in transit by encrypting your message locally. So even if your phone is stolen or lost, your texts remain safe.
PDroid
Using a number of apps on your smartphone means an automatic loss of privacy. Since most of us are lax about reading Terms & Conditions, we just agree to let the app have full access to our phone and its data. PDroid claims to let you block access of the following data to any application — device ID (IMEI/MEID/ESN), subscriber ID (IMSI), SIM serial (ICCID), phone and mailbox number, incoming call number, outgoing call number, GPS location, network location, list of accounts (including your Google e-mail address), account authorisation tokens, contacts, call logs, calendar, SMS, MMS, browser bookmarks and history, system logs, SIM info (operator, country) and network info (operator, country).
XPrivacy
XPrivacy lets you restrict several data categories by feeding applications junk or no data.For example, if you restrict an application’s access to contacts or location, that application will receive an empty contacts list or a fake location. The best part is, restriction works on an app-to-app basis, so even while you restrict Twitter from getting your location, you can use it on a navigation app. XPrivacy doesn’t revoke permissions, so technically, most applications should not crash. Point to be noted — your phone needs to be rooted to use this tool, essentially rendering your warranty null and void, so exercise caution.
RedPhone
Ah, those childhood summers of playing elaborate games of hide-and-seek with toy walkie-talkies...‘Twas a simpler time. Well, its city cousin is now in the market. RedPhone gives you end-to-end encryption for your calls without you having to use anything other than your default system dialler. Of course, your partner-in-crime needs to have RedPhone installed too. The app works on your data plan/wifi, so you don’t lose talk time either. Three-two-one, ready or not, here I come!
