Between vaccine appointment notifications, store pickups, online food ordering, and a general increase in online ordering, I feel like I’ve created three times as many online accounts in the past 18 months than I did in all previous years combined.
Handing out any sort of personal information, whether it’s an email address or a phone number, can lead to spam, data breaches, or harassment. More abstractly, it can also enable tracking by data brokers—companies that take identifiable bits of data, including phone numbers, email addresses, and device-specific identifiers (such as a browser fingerprint or device ID that’s linked to a phone or computer) and then aggregate that data into a marketing profile. One way to protect your personal details from both individuals and corporations is to use alternate details, which you can generate through a number of tools. These “burner” identity tools create disposable email addresses, credit card numbers, and phone numbers, all of which can help protect your main accounts while you do just about anything online.
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