AI has slowly but surely invaded practically every area of our digital life, exposing us to one of the most serious privacy threats since the development of social media.
But how are we going to deal with this new threat? How do you protect your privacy in an era when sophisticated AI algorithms make it easy for individuals and organizations to circumvent your privacy safeguards? Here are six strategies to safeguard your privacy in the age of artificial intelligence.
1. Don’t Give AI Chatbots Access To Sensitive Information
It’s tempting to run everything through your preferred chatbot. Do you need an email written? Do you need to arrange a trip? Do you require a password suggestion? Consider looking into a health issue. Many people rely on AI chatbots like ChatGPT to accomplish jobs like these, but should you?
While AI chatbots can make your life easier by automating such activities, they also expose you to major privacy and security risks. For example, if you ask ChatGPT for password suggestions, talk to it about your health or relationship issues, or use it regularly to draft confidential documents for work, your account is already a gold mine of sensitive information that threat actors can use against you.
Companies that own the most popular AI chatbots on the market, such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, are unlikely to utilize your discussions maliciously. However, hackers do not have the same leeway. AI chatbot profiles, such as your ChatGPT account, are a potential target for hackers who are familiar with the type of information your account may hold. Don’t let yourself be a victim. Don’t give AI chatbots any personal or sensitive information.
2. Be Wary of What You Post Online
Be extremely cautious about what you post on the internet. The entire AI industry is based on data—my data, your data, and everyone else’s data. Text you post on forums, photos you post on social media, videos and voice notes you post: all of this is gold for scrapers looking for data to train their AI models. Worse, due to the relatively permissive restrictions governing data access for training AI models, practically anything is fair game. Aside from the fact that your data could be stored on a remote server halfway around the world and used to train an AI system, there are also severe security and reputational problems.
So you uploaded a video of yourself singing to YouTube: what could possibly go wrong? Today’s AI algorithms are frighteningly strong. They are capable of producing incredibly realistic modifications of your movies, photos, and sounds. Sharing too much personal information or graphic content online raises the possibility of your identity being utilized maliciously.
3. Be More Deliberate In Your Online Activities
To create an opinion about you, AI algorithms can simply accumulate and evaluate content—even private information you’d rather not disclose openly. This can compromise your privacy, compromising your job possibilities, relationships, and general internet profile. If your online habits are somewhat unfavorable, AI systems can detect this, perpetuate prejudices, and amplify bad information.
Of course, people still rely heavily on tools like Google to check up people. AI chatbots, on the other hand, are gradually becoming a preferred option. They may soon become a popular way to look up people. What is the significance of this? The data obtained about your internet activity today will be used by AI systems to inform people about you in the future.
4. Maintain As Much Anonymity As Possible
There’s never been a better time to embrace internet anonymity if you haven’t already. Previously, your privacy concerns were most likely related to social media apps selling your data or smartphone apps spying on you. Things have become more sophisticated—not in a good way. From the crumbs of data you leave behind, powerful AI systems can create a frighteningly accurate profile of you.
Companies are not required to purchase personal data from the services you use. With the proper priming, AI systems can detect your digital traces and utilize them to build accurate representations of your personality. It’s not easy to fight this. You might begin by making it difficult to be identified by being as anonymous as possible. utilize anonymous web browsers, subscribe to a VPN, change your username across online services, utilize anonymous search engines, and experiment with disposable emails wherever possible to remain anonymous online.
5. Use More Secure Passwords
We’ve been hearing for years about the importance of stronger passwords. However, in the face of advanced AI techniques, some “strong” passwords are no longer that strong.
The introduction of AI-powered password crackers makes it much easier to crack some so-called difficult passwords. Consider PassGAN, an AI model for password cracking that was trained on millions of genuine passwords from hacked databases. The difference in speed and efficacy may not be great right now, but it demonstrates what AI can do. Other AI-powered password cracking programs, in addition to PassGAN, now use social engineering approaches to generate the best password guesses.
What is the moral of the story? You must develop considerably more secure passwords. You must understand how to construct a password that is simple to remember but difficult to decipher. Why not try 20-character passwords if you’re up for it?
6. Read Privacy Policies As Frequently As Necessary
Yes, it is a tedious task. Going through all of the lengthy privacy rules on websites isn’t really entertaining. However, if you intend to utilize a web service and share data of any type with them, you should take the time to read the privacy rules to understand how your data will be treated. If you disagree with the terms or policies, search for ways to withdraw your agreement to the website using your data.
Chatbots are included. Every reputable service has a privacy policy that explains how your information is used. That is how you can learn what ChatGPT does with your data.
Final Thoughts
As AI continues to advance at a rapid pace, the threats to our security and privacy will inevitably escalate. As a result, it is critical that we take proactive steps to protect our personal information and appropriately employ AI tools in ways that do not expose us to large security dangers.