New Year’s Resolutions: 2025

Well, 2024 was a hell of a year for security and privacy failures. I have several ideas on how we can make 2025 better, for all of us – goals for your New Year’s Resolutions list.

It’s Time to Normalize Privacy

Data mining is completely out of control. While smartphones are pretty bad, Apple and even Google have managed to give us more control over what data they share. But there are other common devices that are tracking us that you might not be aware of – like your car and your TV. Without laws forbidding this, tech companies and data brokers are aggressively collecting astounding amounts of personal data so they can monetize it. Even if you don’t think you care about your own privacy (and if you don’t, please read Privacy is Power), your privacy overlaps the privacy of those around you. And privacy failures often lead to security failures.

Until we can get regulations to protect our right to privacy, there are still a lot of fairly simple things we can do that will limit our exposure. And more importantly, we need to normalize privacy and the use of privacy-preserving technology. Privacy isn’t about having something to hide – it’s about only sharing what you wish to share and only with whom you wish to share it. Privacy is a basic human right. You don’t have to justify a right, it just is. But if you don’t assert your rights, you can undermine them not only for yourself but for others who may depend on them much more than you do.

In 2025, resolve to normalize privacy! It should be the default, the de facto standard. Below are some tips that will reduce your digital footprint and protect your data. See how many you can check off this year! (And when you’re done, help your loved ones to do the same.)

Minimize Your Exposure

One of the main projects I undertook in 2024 was to locate and review as much of my public data as I could find. Even I was shocked at how much was still out there. Now, as a business owner and a public figure, it’s very hard to be anonymous – those two things are in direct conflict. But even outside my professional information, I still found a ton of personal data that had no business being out there. Trouble is, much of our personal data is posted on government websites: property and tax records, voter registration, civil and criminal suits, marriage and divorce records, etc. And there are hundreds if not thousands of data brokers and “risk management” firms who seek out, collect, collate, correlate and package that information for sale to just about anyone willing to pay. And sadly, you can get to a lot of this without even paying, if you look hard enough. Here are some ways you can (and should) reduce your information exposure.

• Find and delete your public data. The only data that can’t be stolen or abused is data that doesn’t exist. You should try to reduce the amount of public data there is about you. While it’s possible to do this yourself, it’s easier to pay someone else to do it. Look at my series of articles that explain where to find your info and how to reduce or eliminate it.
• Delete unnecessary accounts. Do an inventory of your online accounts and delete anything you no longer need. If possible, ask them to delete your data, as well. The only possible exception is social media and email accounts – your user ID might be recycled (given to someone else), at which point they could send and receive email on your old account. See this article for more info.
• Freeze your credit. There are really no reasons not to freeze your account at the major credit bureaus. It’s free and easy to freeze and thaw as often as you want, and it has no impact on your credit score. It’s one of the best ways to prevent identity theft.
• De-Google your life. Google is an ad company – 80-90% of their revenue is from ads. Besides all the products with “Google” in the name, Google owns Waze, Fitbit, YouTube, Android, Chrome browser, and much more. There are privacy-respecting alternatives – see how many Google products you can replace.
• Quit Chrome. If you’re going to pick just one Google product to replace, make it Chrome. Google’s Chrome is by far the most popular web browser on the planet. But using Chrome gives Google full access to whatever you do on the web. Chrome has privacy settings, but they’re not enough – and Chrome has recently hobbled third party ad blockers. There is a simple fix: ditch Chrome and use a privacy-respecting browser.
• Block ads (and tracking). I realize that ads (and monetizing your personal data) are what pay for many “free” products. But ad companies aren’t just showing you ads, they’re mining your data to show you targeted ads. You should block this tracking where you can. And removing those annoying ads will make your internet experience much more enjoyable – you’ll be wondering why you didn’t do it sooner.
• Disable AI data sharing. Everyone is adding some form of “AI” (Artificial Intelligence) to their products. But in the race for the most powerful and all-knowing AI features, the companies behind these products are often using your queries, emails, messages and documents to train their next generation AI models. This “feature” is often turned on by default and the setting to disable it is rarely obvious – and often intentionally obfuscated. You can see some examples here. I’m going to see if I can put together an article for disabling AI data collection soon, so stay tuned.

Normalize Encryption

Ever since the dawn of the internet, governments (in particular law enforcement and intelligence agencies) have been trying to curtail the use of encryption technology. In the 90’s, we called it the Crypto Wars – which led to the creation of ground-breaking technologies like Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). Today, these agencies still complain of going dark and demand “responsibly managed encryption“. But there’s no back door that only lets in the good guys, as we have just been very painfully reminded.

We all need and deserve strong encryption and the truly private communications that it enables. This should be the norm, not the exception. You don’t have to be doing anything criminal or nefarious. Everyone should be using secure and private communications tools, every day, all the time. There’s just no reason not to. Get your friends and family to do this, too.

• Use Signal. The Signal app is still my go-to recommendation for private messaging. There are several other options that offer true end-to-end encryption (E2EE), and you can debate that this or that tool is better for extreme situations. But Signal is the easy-button answer for the vast majority of regular people. The only downside is that you’ll have to convince others to join you. One perk: this neatly solves the blue vs green bubble issue. Signal works on all platforms: iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux.
• Use Proton everything. Proton Mail was a fantastic service when it launched 10 years ago. It offered truly private email. But in recent years, Proton has added many more secure and private services: VPN, Drive (secure cloud storage), Pass (password manager), Calendar, Docs and even a Bitcoin wallet. Again, there are other services out there, but having them all under one umbrella is just really handy. To get the most out of these services, you’ll need your friends and family to get Proton accounts, too – but they have a very usable free tier to start with. They also offer family accounts.
• Encrypt your drives. Thankfully, most smartphones today have encrypted drives by default, if you have it set to lock (which you should). You can encrypt Mac computers easily with FileVault. Unfortunately, Windows Home doesn’t come with Microsoft’s drive encryption tool, BitLocker – you need Pro or Enterprise. But you can use VeraCrypt, which is free.
• Use Cryptomator. Popular cloud storage options like Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox are technically encrypted, but the keys are held by the service providers. If you want to keep using them, consider putting your most sensitive docs in a specially encrypted ‘vault’ folder using a tool like Cryptomator (VeraCrypt can do this, too).
• Use a VPN (where it makes sense). Virtual Private Networks aren’t as private as you might think and they’re certainly not the silver bullet for privacy that many claim to be. Personally, I only use a VPN when my cell phone hotspot won’t work. If you do decide to use a VPN, use one that actually respects your privacy.

More Ideas

If you haven’t taken care of the basics, you should put these at the top of your list: use a password manager and set up two-factor authentication on your important accounts. If none of the above goals grab you, or if by some miracle you’ve already done most of them, have a look back a my previous posts for more ideas: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021.

You can also resolve to help your friends and family to accomplish some of these goals. You can check out my security and privacy coupons to formalize your offer of help (and to find even more ideas). And if you haven’t checked it out yet, maybe try listening to my podcast to keep you motivated throughout the year. So many options to choose from! Surely you can find some goals to add to your list for 2025.