Smartphone : The biggest challenge in today’s connected world is to protect private data. The main reason for this is the increase in storage capacity of smartphones coming in today’s time. The more storage there is in our smartphone, the more we are going to store our personal data in the smartphone. As connectivity and features are proving to be a boon for us today, similarly looking at the dark side, it is becoming a challenge for us to save privacy. Because of which today users are surrounded by hacking calls, dangerous apps and data privacy is on the alert. Due to many apps, such dangerous viruses or malware come in our smartphones which keep leaking our personal data.
Google has made major changes in its Android operating system, taking cognizance of this problem of users in the last year, so that users’ personal information cannot be shared with anyone without their permission. For this, the security feature of Android is constantly being improved. But the biggest challenge is that many users do not know how to secure their personal data. All smartphone manufacturer companies provide such options with their device, with the help of which users can protect (secure) private data by making some settings in their phones.
Always Lucked Your Phone
Have you ever wondered how many times you have given your smartphone to someone to use. Whether it was for making calls or for playing games, or for listening to music or watching videos? All your personal information remains in your smartphone like an open book, which can be easily shared with any other device. Its simple and easy way is to lock your smartphone and keep the data safe.
By applying a simple lock, you can keep many of your personal data safe in your smartphone such as gallery, file manager, video players, Whatsapp etc. If you have an Android smartphone, then you will have a security lock system to lock the device with the operating system. For example, Samsung gives it the name of the Secure folder. OnePlus gives it the name of App Locker. Devices of OPPO, Realme and Xiaomi call it App Lock.
App lockers used in these smartphones encrypt you private data so that it is not accessible to anyone. OnePlus’s Oxygen OS and Samsung’s OneUI also have the option to hide any app. Security is further improved in ColorOS 7.1, which comes with OPPO’s recently launched FindX2 series. For example, screenshots and screen records can also be prevented by enabling privacy settings.
These privacy features of the smartphone are good for your friends, relatives and unknown people, but people in your family will not like to keep your phone locked or any specific folder or app locked. You cannot block access to your phone with people in your family, but you will be able to hide some of your personal files. OnePlus names this feature as Lockbox which can be accessed through the File Manager app. There is a similar Secure folder feature for Samsung devices. For Vivo devices, this feature is called File Safe. At the same time, in Xiaomi devices you get the option to hide individual files from the file manager.
You also get the password protection feature in the MIUI used in Xiaomi’s device, which allows you to lock any private messages in your device. Apart from this, you can also hide photos, files and notes using common password. ColorOS used in OPPO’s device also has a private safe feature, due to which you get another additional security layer in your smartphone, with the help of this, you can share your phone with anyone by keeping your personal data secure. It would be better if you do not use any third party app for this.
Keep an eye on app permissions
Many times it happens that people do not pay attention to the permission sought while installing the apps in their smartphone, due to which the security of your personal data is threatened. Do you know that there are many such apps that ask you for access to your contacts, gallery, GPS location, camera, etc. and we also grant these permission to those apps without paying attention. Because of this, personal data of our device becomes insecure.
Have you ever felt that if you google anything, then you get an ad for the products you search. You may not have noticed this on Facebook or other social media platforms. This is because your smartphone has many such apps that steal your personal data and sell it to marketers to earn profits. Because of which you often get such marketing calls or emails.
To avoid this, you have to go to your phone’s settings and go to apps. After going to the apps, you have to go to any perticular app and check its permission. You can see which permissions have been given to which app. You can disable permissions of these apps by going there. Because of this, when you are using the app or not, your personal data will not be shared with any third party.
Data leaks also happen through Wi-Fi
Many times you pass your personal information to hackers through public free Wi-Fi. Like apps, Wi-Fi allows hackers to unknowingly pass on their private data via the Internet. Samsung has provided the Secure Wi-Fi feature in the device for its users. At the same time, with MIUI 12, Xiaomi has added a new privacy protection feature that removes metadata information from users’ smartphones before sharing them with photos. OPPO’s ColorOS also has a similar payment protection feature that can secure your payment. Especially when you do mobile transactions. If you have these smartphones, then you can secure your data. Especially when using public Wi-Fi.
After all these data privacy measures, finally we are also advising you to use better security apps or anti-virus for your smartphone. So that the security of your personal data becomes more circumspect. Many times we lose our important data or private photos. This is due to the virus residing in our device. For this, you need to keep your personal data on cloud storage. In such a situation, in case of lost or stolen phone, your personal data will remain secure in the cloud. You can install anti virus of McAfee, AVG, Norton, Avast, Bitfender, Kaspersky in your Android smartphone.
CONCLUSION
In the end, I would like to say that safeguarding or protecting your personal data should be your top priority. Smartphone companies ‘OS continues to roll out a variety of privacy features and new features for users so that users’ private data can be protected. All smartphone brands continuously roll out security patches for their devices. Out of these, OPPO has rolled out many great security features with its new ColorOS. Because of which, users get help in securing their smartphone’s personal folders and data.
