Interview with Data Protection Specialist – Cristiana Deca

In this age of surveillance the biggest threat for humans is trading privacy for comfort...

Decalex

Our latest interview is with a data protection specialist Cristiana Deca, who’s been in this field for the last 8 years. That’s like 30 years in “regular time,” so obviously we want to hear what she had to say about the subject that we care about the most – privacy…

Can you shortly introduce yourself?

Cristiana DecaMy name is Cristiana Deca and I am a data protection specialist, having worked in this field for the last 8 years. I have my own data protection consultancy company Decalex and I live to help companies integrate privacy as an asset in their business strategies.

What do you see as the main challenges for our privacy today?

In this age of surveillance the biggest threat for humans is trading privacy for comfort. It’s comfortable to log in with a click on all devices but that doesn’t make it right. So we have to educate the consumers into understanding what are the boundaries of their private life, what to share with companies, and how that affects them.

Data protection is more than just personal data, it goes hand in hand with privacy, and one without the other can’t exist. In order to protect our data we need to understand what should be private for us. So in this world where everybody is sharing anything on social media and makes it public, the biggest challenge for privacy remains to understand that online life is very different from offline life and that the consequences of action in online life can harm the individuals in many ways.

What can we as individuals do about it?

We can start by just reading the privacy policies of the apps we use. It is very scary to see that your personal data will be shared with our third parties and to see a list of 300 hundred strangers that are going to get your data and will have access to all your private info. So yeah, digital stalking should not be the rule, and individuals should not get used to it.

Can VPNs help? Do you use one?

Yes, VPNs help. Shielding your browsing activity should be the rule; this is one step we can take to have a private life while using the internet.

In my opinion, VPNs should be the rule for anyone who wants to be protected when surfing online. I use one, I actually have more than one VPNs ready to activate when working online.

What do you do to protect your personal information?

The first step for me is trying not to share my personal information with any company I don’t know. It’s a hustle because I have to read and navigate all legal documents but it’s interesting to see how much I can find out about a company just by looking at their privacy policy. I almost never accept marketing cookies and I use private browsers so I can skip the added profiling when searching for things online.

Do you have some other advice for our readers so they could, at least partially, regain their privacy?

Get out of the comfort zone and just look around you. Look at the commercials you get, the ads that you see online, and remember that all this info you are seeing is a piece of you. A piece of the personal info you exposed online. So in order to regain control over your personal information, it is necessary to review the way you interact with companies online. You have the control to decide what to share with them or not — so it’s just up to you when you decide to take action.