Skybird
10-14-22, 04:55 AM
Deutsche Welle writes:
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DW reporter Dana Regev was surprised when she arrived in Germany from Israel and discovered how seriously Germans take their privacy.
Before I am already criticized for the headline, I would like to make one thing clear at this point: I fully support the efforts of those people who want to protect their own data and control how organizations, companies or governments use it.
Speaking of companies: Apple, for example, has repeatedly faced harsh criticism from European privacy activists who claim the company uses software that tracks the behavior of iPhone users.
A Vienna-based non-governmental organization called NOYB (the acronym stands for: My Privacy is None of Your Business) has even asked data protection authorities in Germany to look into the legality of its special identifier for advertisers (IDFA), which it says amounts to tracking without users' knowledge or consent - a practice banned under the European Union's strict data protection rules.
If you're from a country that doesn't have such strict privacy rules, you're in for a surprise in Germany.
Almost all of my German friends use pseudo names on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram - if they use these apps at all. Some are very creative in choosing their name, others generate an alter ego by splitting their own first name, like my friend "Chris Tina" or my longtime neighbor "Alex Ander".
I opened my Facebook account in 2007 during a visit to the US. At the time, I was just naive and wanted to stay in touch with people who were close to me in some way through this social media platform.
Why I should hide my own name from my family or school friends was - and still is - a complete mystery to me. In the meantime, I understand why some Germans do this.
Woman standing in front of a wall with facebook written on it, looking at her smartphone.
"For me, it's not so much about Facebook finding information about me. I'm registered with a pseudo email address anyway," "Isa Belle," a 34-year-old German teacher from Cologne, says on Telegram, asking not to use her full name. "I especially don't want my students to find me on these platforms and stalk me in any way. Or that future employers find out about me on the social media platforms," she explains. "I just want to make it a little harder for people to track me down and get a glimpse into my private life."
When the topic of privacy comes up in conversations with family or friends in my native Israel, many wave it off, claiming, "Whoever wants certain information about you will find it one way or another."
Some even prefer to give companies easier access to their data, as an old friend of mine does: "If I'm going to be bombarded with advertising, it should be advertising that interests me," she explains.
Speaking of advertising. That's one of several things Germans are pretty allergic to. Sure, it's probably inevitable to encounter advertising on the Internet. But why should we voluntarily give companies easier access to our wallets?
Philipp Hermann, a 33-year-old IT worker from Berlin who proudly tells me he doesn't have a Facebook or Instagram profile, is extremely sensitive to online advertising: "People think they're immune. That in the worst case, they'll buy one or two more things than they planned - but they don't realize how much more they end up consuming," he says.
As someone who works in the IT industry, he admits that he may be more sensitive than the average person when it comes to sharing personal information. And not just because it could lead to impulsive shopping. For him, and for many others, it's about keeping things to himself as much as possible.
"To anyone who would ask me 'Why are you hiding?"' I would like to ask the counter question, 'Why not?" he says, "especially given what certain governments are doing with our data."
I'm embarrassed by how many of my passwords have been exposed "in a third-party data breach," according to Google. So I've always respected the decision of my German friends and colleagues to protect themselves against leaks and security breaches.
But it never occurred to me that some consequences could be far more tragic. "One of my friends is an activist, and her data was published on neo-Nazi forums," reveals IT expert Hermann. "She had to change her phone number and even considered moving out of her shared apartment for fear of her roommates."
Computer screen shows a triangle with exclamation mark and the writing Virus. Around it are many zeros and ones.
Another close friend of mine, an immigrant in Germany who is involved in various social issues, is constantly harassed by one of his neighbors who found him on Facebook and noticed what different political views they have. That same neighbor has since found my profile.
"It's not just about this or that ad," says "Isa Belle": "It's about who can access my data and for what purposes. Since I can't possibly find out, my motto is 'the fewer companies - the better'."
They're not rude - they're just reticent
About a month after I met my current partner (a German), I tried calling him on the (real) phone because I didn't have a sufficient internet connection to reach him on platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp or FaceTime. It turned out that his number was not active.
I realized that I had been communicating with him all along through a number he used exclusively for online dating. We obviously didn't know each other long enough for him to have given me his "real" number.
"I used to have a stalker!" he said when I tearfully confronted him and seriously considered breaking up. "You never know who's on those apps!" he tried to win back my trust.
The relationship miraculously survived, but I still give new acquaintances my real number. As for my boyfriend, he continues to give his "fake" number even during promising job interviews, so I have since accepted that this practice was not directed at me personally.
For now, I think I'll keep my real name and email address associated with my social accounts, but at least after six years in Germany, I can say that I understand the Germans' reticence a little better.
https://www.dw.com/de/warum-deutschen-ihre-online-daten-heilig-sind/a-56377802
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I feel well described here, i admit I tick like in that description, too. My telephone number is white-listed, and can be accessed only from regional vicinity and from smartphones - cable telephones from outside the city and directly surrounding districts cannot find it, only people whose calling number I whitelisted before. I use five email adresses, sorted for purpose and senders/receivers. My smartphone is often off, often i do not take it with me, and my only social media is - Subsim :D . I do not shop online in ever new shops at all, I have a steam, a paypal (again, it was an on-off-on-off-on thing), an Amazon, a Thalia (ebook) and an Ebay account. I avoid opening new accounts and give away bank data, if possible I pay via paypal, where that is not possible, I most likely will chose to not buy. I run two bank accounts, one with low amounts of money only, for online connectivity and the needs of the month, this one I occasionally "charge" from the other account at another bank where the real money :) is. No online activity for this second one! The data never is given away, to nobody. Even transfers to charge the first account I do manually, at the bank.
Is locking your housedoor when leaving, paranoid? I dont think so. Evolution means the one survives who adapts successfully to his living environment. Mine is filled with fraudsters, cheaters, plunderers, robbers and liars. I adapt. Thats the clever thing to do.
----------------------------------
DW reporter Dana Regev was surprised when she arrived in Germany from Israel and discovered how seriously Germans take their privacy.
Before I am already criticized for the headline, I would like to make one thing clear at this point: I fully support the efforts of those people who want to protect their own data and control how organizations, companies or governments use it.
Speaking of companies: Apple, for example, has repeatedly faced harsh criticism from European privacy activists who claim the company uses software that tracks the behavior of iPhone users.
A Vienna-based non-governmental organization called NOYB (the acronym stands for: My Privacy is None of Your Business) has even asked data protection authorities in Germany to look into the legality of its special identifier for advertisers (IDFA), which it says amounts to tracking without users' knowledge or consent - a practice banned under the European Union's strict data protection rules.
If you're from a country that doesn't have such strict privacy rules, you're in for a surprise in Germany.
Almost all of my German friends use pseudo names on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram - if they use these apps at all. Some are very creative in choosing their name, others generate an alter ego by splitting their own first name, like my friend "Chris Tina" or my longtime neighbor "Alex Ander".
I opened my Facebook account in 2007 during a visit to the US. At the time, I was just naive and wanted to stay in touch with people who were close to me in some way through this social media platform.
Why I should hide my own name from my family or school friends was - and still is - a complete mystery to me. In the meantime, I understand why some Germans do this.
Woman standing in front of a wall with facebook written on it, looking at her smartphone.
"For me, it's not so much about Facebook finding information about me. I'm registered with a pseudo email address anyway," "Isa Belle," a 34-year-old German teacher from Cologne, says on Telegram, asking not to use her full name. "I especially don't want my students to find me on these platforms and stalk me in any way. Or that future employers find out about me on the social media platforms," she explains. "I just want to make it a little harder for people to track me down and get a glimpse into my private life."
When the topic of privacy comes up in conversations with family or friends in my native Israel, many wave it off, claiming, "Whoever wants certain information about you will find it one way or another."
Some even prefer to give companies easier access to their data, as an old friend of mine does: "If I'm going to be bombarded with advertising, it should be advertising that interests me," she explains.
Speaking of advertising. That's one of several things Germans are pretty allergic to. Sure, it's probably inevitable to encounter advertising on the Internet. But why should we voluntarily give companies easier access to our wallets?
Philipp Hermann, a 33-year-old IT worker from Berlin who proudly tells me he doesn't have a Facebook or Instagram profile, is extremely sensitive to online advertising: "People think they're immune. That in the worst case, they'll buy one or two more things than they planned - but they don't realize how much more they end up consuming," he says.
As someone who works in the IT industry, he admits that he may be more sensitive than the average person when it comes to sharing personal information. And not just because it could lead to impulsive shopping. For him, and for many others, it's about keeping things to himself as much as possible.
"To anyone who would ask me 'Why are you hiding?"' I would like to ask the counter question, 'Why not?" he says, "especially given what certain governments are doing with our data."
I'm embarrassed by how many of my passwords have been exposed "in a third-party data breach," according to Google. So I've always respected the decision of my German friends and colleagues to protect themselves against leaks and security breaches.
But it never occurred to me that some consequences could be far more tragic. "One of my friends is an activist, and her data was published on neo-Nazi forums," reveals IT expert Hermann. "She had to change her phone number and even considered moving out of her shared apartment for fear of her roommates."
Computer screen shows a triangle with exclamation mark and the writing Virus. Around it are many zeros and ones.
Another close friend of mine, an immigrant in Germany who is involved in various social issues, is constantly harassed by one of his neighbors who found him on Facebook and noticed what different political views they have. That same neighbor has since found my profile.
"It's not just about this or that ad," says "Isa Belle": "It's about who can access my data and for what purposes. Since I can't possibly find out, my motto is 'the fewer companies - the better'."
They're not rude - they're just reticent
About a month after I met my current partner (a German), I tried calling him on the (real) phone because I didn't have a sufficient internet connection to reach him on platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp or FaceTime. It turned out that his number was not active.
I realized that I had been communicating with him all along through a number he used exclusively for online dating. We obviously didn't know each other long enough for him to have given me his "real" number.
"I used to have a stalker!" he said when I tearfully confronted him and seriously considered breaking up. "You never know who's on those apps!" he tried to win back my trust.
The relationship miraculously survived, but I still give new acquaintances my real number. As for my boyfriend, he continues to give his "fake" number even during promising job interviews, so I have since accepted that this practice was not directed at me personally.
For now, I think I'll keep my real name and email address associated with my social accounts, but at least after six years in Germany, I can say that I understand the Germans' reticence a little better.
https://www.dw.com/de/warum-deutschen-ihre-online-daten-heilig-sind/a-56377802
----------------------------------------
I feel well described here, i admit I tick like in that description, too. My telephone number is white-listed, and can be accessed only from regional vicinity and from smartphones - cable telephones from outside the city and directly surrounding districts cannot find it, only people whose calling number I whitelisted before. I use five email adresses, sorted for purpose and senders/receivers. My smartphone is often off, often i do not take it with me, and my only social media is - Subsim :D . I do not shop online in ever new shops at all, I have a steam, a paypal (again, it was an on-off-on-off-on thing), an Amazon, a Thalia (ebook) and an Ebay account. I avoid opening new accounts and give away bank data, if possible I pay via paypal, where that is not possible, I most likely will chose to not buy. I run two bank accounts, one with low amounts of money only, for online connectivity and the needs of the month, this one I occasionally "charge" from the other account at another bank where the real money :) is. No online activity for this second one! The data never is given away, to nobody. Even transfers to charge the first account I do manually, at the bank.
Is locking your housedoor when leaving, paranoid? I dont think so. Evolution means the one survives who adapts successfully to his living environment. Mine is filled with fraudsters, cheaters, plunderers, robbers and liars. I adapt. Thats the clever thing to do.