You’ve got your brand-new phone, laptop, or speaker out of the box. Now it needs setup, which requires agreeing to dozens of screens saying “agree”, signing into your pre-existing account, and picking a wallpaper. Fifteen minutes later, it seems like your new purchase is ready to work.
Except that, well, it’s not. You’ve just given way too much personal data to whatever you installed without even glancing through what it actually did.
This isn’t about paranoia, excessive caution, or locking up every function until it stops working. It’s just about knowing which of the available settings actually matter, so that you can spend those extra 30 minutes upfront instead of having trouble with it later.
Once a person installs a device, they usually don’t return to changing the initial settings. So whatever is approved during that very first fifteen-minute setup will remain active throughout the entire lifetime of a phone, laptop, or smart speaker.
Here are the privacy settings that most people forget to configure, and which are better to adjust before actually starting to use the new device. None of those require additional software installation or technical know-how – just a bit of your time and attention.
Why Are Some Privacy Settings Never Adjusted?
The whole point of a setup process created by manufacturers is to get you started using the product as soon as possible. This is great for adopting technology, but it hurts your privacy because the easiest and quickest way to get through all the screens always means accepting default settings, which are almost always the least private settings available.
There’s also a psychological factor behind why privacy settings aren’t always configured. When you get a new device, you want to start using it. Reading all the permission requests is a bother – a barrier between you and the fun stuff.
Companies know that and design consent screens in a way that makes them quick to pass without actually paying attention to what is written there.
The good news is that most privacy setting adjustments take only several minutes to complete once you understand where they are located. You just need to be willing to spend a bit of time and pay attention to what is happening.
The Account Permissions You Should Check First
When you install a new phone or computer by logging into your pre-existing account, the account usually syncs with it much more than you might realize.
Contacts, browsing history, application activity, and sometimes even your location history are all connected automatically.
But before you proceed with anything else, go to your account settings and check what is connected to it.
The two aspects worth considering are:
- Which apps and services are permitted to access your account, and whether some of them are applications you used in the past but no longer need.
- Whether or not ad personalization is enabled on your device by default, because it usually determines the amount of your activity used to create a personalized profile for targeted advertisements.
In general, most platforms hide these permissions several levels deeper in the settings menu. Just search for “privacy” or “permissions” and you’ll find what you need.
Location Data Is Often Mismanaged
Location data access is, perhaps, the most under-managed privacy setting of all devices. New phones often request location permission for valid reasons, such as weather reports or maps, but that permission is often applied much further than the user expects.
Once granted, location access can extend to all sorts of background applications not related to navigation.
A flashlight application and even a game have no reason to know where you are, but a lot of them ask for it. And a lot of users just agree to give it, since the location permission request is shown in the middle of the setup process.
Check your location settings and restrict access for everything that doesn’t really need it.
Set location permission to “only while using an application”. Disable location history for apps where you cannot think of any reason to use it.
Making this change will decrease the amount of data about your daily routines saved somewhere.
How Do You Manage Your Voice Assistant?
Voice assistants are very convenient to use. However, their installation process rarely reveals the fact that your voice commands may be recorded and, in some cases, reviewed by a human operator.
It’s better than a few years ago due to regulatory pressure, but the default settings of voice assistants still allow data collection instead of restricting access.
Find a section about voice history or recordings during the setup of your device.
Almost every assistant allows you to auto-delete recordings after a certain period (usually 3 or 18 months) or disable storage completely.
In case you use voice commands only to set timers, you don’t need a long-term recording archive stored on some company’s server.
You can also check if your device uses a wake word or is set to always-listen mode. Both are usually optional, so you can switch them off and it won’t affect the performance of your device.
Basic Security of Home Network
New devices are set to connect to your Wi-Fi by default. However, the network is rarely paid attention to when you are excited about your new purchase.
A few basic things are worth checking:
- Use WPA3 encryption if your router supports it, or at least WPA2. WEP encryption is not safe nowadays.
- Change the default password for the admin panel of your router if you haven’t done it. There is a possibility that some routers still ship with a generic default password written on a sticker.
- Create a dedicated network for your smart home devices, such as cameras, speakers, or thermostats. It will isolate your smart home devices from the rest of your equipment, which means that if one of them gets compromised, the others won’t be affected
If you often connect your new device to public Wi-Fi networks, consider using a VPN to encrypt your internet traffic and reduce the risk of others monitoring your connection. A VPN is especially useful when using airport, hotel, or café networks where you have little control over the security of the network.
It’s worth noting that the vast majority of modern routers allow you to see which devices are currently connected directly from the admin panel or a companion application.
Checking it once every few months is a way to detect anything suspicious – from your neighbor trying to use your Wi-Fi network to an old device that is still connected.
And it takes just a minute to do so.