Bethany Alvaro 
Keeping personal data safe remains a difficult task amid the growing digital landscape, with Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) urging Aussies to take greater care to protect themselves from data breaches.
“This World Data Privacy Day, we want Australians to stop feeling helpless about the ‘privacy paradox’ and start pushing back against the convenience trap,” EFA chair John Pane said.
“Most Australians value their privacy deeply, yet they find themselves clicking ‘Accept All’ or avoiding reading an organisation’s privacy policy simply because it looks like it was written in elvish and would take more than 20 minutes to read – let alone understand.”
EFA credits part of the ever-growing breach of personal data in digital spheres to the poor regulation in big tech, geopolitical considerations and values, social media reforms, AI concerns and “bullying from the White House”.
“This isn’t a personal failure or laziness on the part of consumers. It’s the result of historically weak privacy laws passed by successive Australian governments who surrendered to the siren song of big tech and big business and their interest groups - ’Profit, productivity and prosperity for all!’,” Pane said.
So, how do you keep your data and personal information safe?
EFA said that to keep personal information secure, there are simple measures users can take to prevent the harvesting and unknown use of their data.
Hardware audits are a valuable measure that can be taken to identify any potential vulnerabilities that put personal data at risk and ensure that companies are complying with security measures.
Browser migration is one of the simplest ways to ensure data privacy, as browsers such as TOR, DuckDuckGo or Brave are solid “privacy-first alternatives”, EFA said.
Legislation advocacy is a reform-focused solution to data privacy threats, with EFA emphasising that default, enforceable privacy should be standard operating procedure for online markets. It also stressed an overhaul of the Privacy Act to better protect and reflect Australian privacy values.
“Privacy isn’t about having something to hide … It’s about having the power to control your own identity and what you allow people to know about you,” Pane said.