Ways the US government can view your data and info
Don't know who needs to hear this, but given the current political situation in the United States, unless you are literally a digital security specialist, you NEED to be assuming that the federal government, the police, ICE, the NSA, the FBI, and the tech corporations that work with the government can all easily find, view, and attach to your IRL life:
Everything single message or thing you've ever sent that requires a signal or wifi (aka all of your texts, dms, discord servers, emails, the contents of photo or file attachments, etc.)
Every single post you've ever made on any social media platform, including tumblr, yes, even if your profile is completely anonymous
If you use Google and/or Google Chrome, your entire search history and every single website you've ever been to (and even if you don't use Google Chrome, unless you have a bunch of adblockers and tracker blockers, they will have all of this stuff anyway)
Any online petitions you've signed that were not specifically anonymous, and some that were
Any online donation you made
All the photos in your phone camera roll and/or that you've uploaded to the internet
The precise, real-time location and location history of your cell phone, yes often even if you have your location turned off, and yes, this IS usually just a literal, real-time log of all your movements
The precise, real-time location and location history of any car with Carplay, or likely any car with a built-in GPS
The precise, real-time location of - and the info picked up by - your FitBit or any other wearable health or fitness tracker
Anything you say in sound range of an Amazon Echo or other digital/home assistant
Anything you say or type into Alexa, Siri, Cortana, or any other digital assistant
The live and old footage of every single Ring camera (which ICE now has access to via a partnership between Amazon and surveillance database Flock, yes including the one on your own house, if you have one, and including the ones on your neighbor's house)
The live and old footage of every single security camera connected to the internet, plus any owned by a collaborating corporation (combined, this will be almost all of them)
Every app you have downloaded, and often everything entered into them, including and especially PERIOD TRACKERS (which have already been used to convict multiple ppl of an abortion in states where it is illegal. FB messages about finding an abortion clinic have been used to convict too
Every single thing you've ever entered into an AI, such as ChatGPT, even if you've deleted the logs, which ChatGPT and afaik other AI companies are required to retain indefinitely by court order
Anyway if you don't want the cops potentially seeing it and using it to convict you, don't send it over an unencrypted connection, period
And finally:
Do not use biometrics or fingerprints to log into things. Use a password. Police can access any account that only requires biometrics, but cannot force you to give up a PIN or password
