New Year’s Resolutions: 2026

Can you believe we’re over halfway through the 2020’s? Yep… 2030 is now closer than 2020. As the new year approaches, let’s plan to take some concrete steps to improve our privacy and security.

In the last year or two, data gathering and mass surveillance have somehow gotten much worse, particularly with the massive spread of artificial intelligence tech. We need to reduce our attack surface. I have several attainable goals for you to add to your 2026 to-do lists. (And if these don’t float your boat, look over my previous lists.)

Claw Back Existing Data

Over the years, we’ve leaked tons of data – some voluntarily, some incidentally, and some just by being alive. But we can take affirmative steps to delete, reduce or stop the sharing of that data.

• Delete old accounts. Over the years, we’ve created many online accounts, some that we’ve frankly forgotten about. But as long as they’re active, they contain data that can be mined, shared and monetized. I wrote a whole series of articles on finding and cleaning up old accounts.
• Remove public data. A lot of the data we produce is just by participating in life: legal records, vehicle and voter registrations, property records, etc. Data brokers hoover up this public data and repackage it for sale. We can delete some of this data ourselves or just pay someone else do it.
• Freeze your credit. A perennial favorite – this not only prevents a lot of identity theft, it blocks some data sharing.
• Delete DNA data. If you’ve ever used a DNA service to check your heritage or scan for congenital issues, you should ask the service to delete your data afterward and never share it (because they do).

Curb Data Sharing

It’s very easy to over-share our data. Companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook and Amazon make a large portion of their revenue from ads – which means collecting and monetizing your data every way possible. And while I didn’t believe it was possible, we’ve created a more ravenous data-hungry beast: artificial intelligence. AI features are metastasizing like cancer, and they’re opting us in to data sharing with little or no notice. We simply do not understand the implications of this, but we’re throwing all caution to the wind and doing it with abandon.

• De-Google your life. I wrote a whole series of articles on how to reduce your Google footprint.
• Rein in your apps. Every app you install increases your attack surface – not just from a security perspective, but also from a privacy perspective. You should remove any apps you no longer use, particularly if they are no longer actively supported. And you should think of browser plugins as apps, too. For all the apps you keep, review the permissions you’ve given them and revoke any permissions that aren’t necessary.
• Break “sign in with” connections. It can be very convenient to use “Sign in with Google” or Facebook, Twitter, etc. But this sets up a data sharing arrangement that’s totally unnecessary. You should just create a standalone account – use a password manager to make this easier. For accounts you’ve already set up, breaking the connection can be tricky if you don’t want to start over with a new account. This article has some tips.
• Use aliases for accounts. Most people have 1-2 email addresses and one phone number – making them a permanent identifier that can link all our accounts to us. But it’s trivial today to create email aliases. Creating phone number aliases isn’t as easy, but it’s still doable.
• Stop sharing data with AI. Everyone and their brother is adding AI features to their products, including adding it via software updates to products we already own. This has two major problems: first, most AI features require sending your data to the cloud for processing. Second, everyone is mining your data to train their AI models. I may need to write an article or two on how to curb this, but you can start with this one.

Going Further

I’m trying to keep it simple and focused this year. Again, you can look back at previous years for additional ideas. But in particular, I’d like to point you to last year’s list... we really, really need to normalize privacy and make a point to use apps with true end-to-end encryption. Our privacy rights are facing threats from many sources these days. We need to positively and actively assert these rights. We need to download and set up tools that ensure secure and private communications. There may come a time, and it may be soon, when access to these tools with be restricted or eliminated.

I’ve also done several interviews concerning threats to our critical infrastructure here in the US due to threats like Volt Typhoon – but this is something all of us, globally, should be concerned about. If you haven’t listened to these podcasts, you really should: Josh Corman with UnDisruptable27, Jake Braun with DEF CON Franklin, and a great panel of folks representing the Cyber Resilience Corps. I’m hoping to put together some guides on how regular citizens can work in their communities and with their local utilities and municipalities to be more resilient. Stay tuned.