How do you talk about Privacy & Security?

[Tony-Cinotto]

Hello there! I’m Tony Amaral-Cinotto, a Product Manager on Firefox Relay and our other privacy and security tools.

Working in online privacy and security, it seems like it’s my entire world for most of the day, and it’s easy to forget that for most people out there, it’s just a minor part, if at all. I’m someone who gets excited if a friend comments at dinner that they think their phone is listening to them because of an ad that showed up recently. I love dissecting that and sharing information on how companies use highly sophisticated advertising practices to target them. Or when my mom asks while she’s traveling if it’s safe to connect to her banking website from hotel wifi. 

I’m curious how you talk to others about privacy and security, like your friends, family, and coworkers. 

• How do you get them to care about their online privacy and security?
• What steps, tools, and protections do you recommend they take steps to protect themselves? What has worked? What hasn’t? 
• Where do you see pushback? 
• What questions do they ask you? 
• Are there any stories or metaphors that help support the discussion? 

Looking forward to learning from you!

[Anonymous]

• I remind them of cases where people were robbed, identity theft and lost a lot of money
• I tell them not to install rogue apps, click on links, never give personal info over phone, etc. the basics. It works mostly. I keep their desktops and browsers up to date. Android is far harder (not many android-one vendors left)
• Sometimes I find rogue apps installed, I remove them myself
• If something might be unsafe, they ask me about it first

[Tony-Cinotto]

That's great to hear and I'm so glad your connections have you to support them. Do you ever share any educational material like youtube videos or blogs with them about online privacy/security?

[Jon]

Love seeing all these great answers—keep ‘em coming! 

Now if you don’t mind @Tony-Cinotto I have a couple questions for you…

• What are some Privacy & Security related things often overlooked or maybe not discussed enough? 
• How could someone best stay informed about these topics? 

Thanks in advance for your insights 🙌

[Tony-Cinotto]

Thank you so much Jon, and everyone who participated in this conversation!

What are some Privacy & Security related things often overlooked or maybe not discussed enough? 

I think it’s important that we acknowledge that privacy is for everyone. A lot of times, people can feel shame when trying to protect their privacy when people ask questions, “What do you have to hide?” Or “You must be doing something wrong if you have to hide stuff?” And that type of sentiment desperately sets back the privacy movement. I have blinds on my windows, not because I’m committing a crime but because there is a mental and physical safety inherent to privacy. We must reframe privacy tools and practices as the norm and not as an afterthought or just because you’re trying to hide something. This can be done in our product choices, the language we use in and outside of our products (ex: Hide My Email indicates that you’re having to hide something which can have negative connotations), and how we communicate with each other.

How could someone best stay informed about these topics? 

I love the Mozilla Foundation’s blog https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/ Mozilla Foundation is the non-profit advocacy part of Mozilla that helps investigate and push the industry in a better direction! They have some cutting-edge discussions and information!

[Tony-Cinotto]

I just wanted to thank everyone for sharing your great ideas and thought provoking suggestions on how we can improve privacy and security for those around us! I really enjoyed reading through all of your replies. I will utilize this this information and think about how we can incorporate this into Mozilla’s work to help protect more people!

[Jon]

Hey all,

Thanks for participating in such a productive and important discussion on privacy & security—so many great insights shared 🙌

We are closing out this thread but want to encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and ideas about this topic (and more) in new posts. Just remember to use the necessary labels and tags, so your posts are easily searched for and discovered by our teams

This is an ongoing series here in the Mozilla Connect community. In fact, there is another discussion happening right now that is hosted by a Product Manager of Firefox Mobile. Please join and share your input here:

Bringing Colour to Firefox Mobile 

And we have more headed this way! If you have a request for a topic, send me a message and I'll reach out to the product and engineering teams to hopefully coordinate. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with you all 😀

-The Community Team

[Jon]

Hey all,

Thanks for participating in such a productive and important discussion on privacy & security—so many great insights shared 🙌

We are closing out this thread but want to encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and ideas about this topic (and more) in new posts. Just remember to use the necessary labels and tags, so your posts are easily searched for and discovered by our teams

This is an ongoing series here in the Mozilla Connect community. In fact, there is another discussion happening right now that is hosted by a Product Manager of Firefox Mobile. Please join and share your input here:

Bringing Colour to Firefox Mobile 

And we have more headed this way! If you have a request for a topic, send me a message and I'll reach out to the product and engineering teams to hopefully coordinate. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with you all 😀

-The Community Team