Privacy is a Process
Privacy is not a simple problem. So we could not build a simple solution.
Your privacy has suffered death by a 1000 cuts. Location shared by your weather app. Habits shared by your browser. Viewing patterns shared by your TV. Purchase history shared by your credit card. Media tastes shared by your streaming software. And 995 others.
Priiv was built to help you fight back, in a methodical and effective way. But it’s not a big red button that restores privacy. Today that could not be built – when it can we will build it.
So what should you expect from Priiv? As a user? As a person that wants to protect your privacy?
The metaphor we like the best, is that of fitness, of weight loss, of improving your diet, or of meditation. Any process where the goal is one achieved slowly and steadily over time.
The good news is that unlike any of those, with Priiv and privacy improvement you get the biggest gains right at the start. The first steps you take make a HUGE difference in terms of making you safer and in reducing your risks.
Sure, it’s a new habit. It takes some time. Changing settings or learning new behaviors isn’t intrinsically fun. But your muscles won’t be sore, you won’t be hungry, and it’s all relatively easy to do.
Several Steps at a Time
It’s smart to focus on the long term goal; protecting yourself and your data. Getting your PriivScore up, and your protections in place for all the risks you face.
And to realize and appreciate your progress. Every time you take a step or three in Priiv, as your scores rise, realize and take pride in the fact that every day less of your data will go to people and companies that shouldn’t have it. The forces of surveillance commerce and personal or political harm will incrementally have a harder and harder time reaching you, and whatever profile they’ve built on you will be getting older and more out of date – less useful to them every week.
The further down your Privacy Path you get, you may be making smaller improvements, but you’re eating away at the remaining percentage of privacy loss at a faster pace. Small changes now plug the remaining gaps – at least the ones you have control over.
And just like life after getting into shape, or losing weight, or any other big change is different, life after you’ve reset your privacy baseline is different too. All of these are never-ending efforts, but there is no comparison between someone who has made progress and someone who has not. With privacy, the difference is in the reduction in risks – and damages – you’ll face across the five risk dimensions tracked in the Priiv app.
The Process in Priiv
Practically speaking, the app lets you tackle the process in several different ways.
Following your PrivacyPath, working top to bottom, is the way most people do it. By default you’re given a few things to do every few days. The assumption is that you’ll want to spend 10 or 15 minutes making progress, and then go back to your real life.
But you can always keep working. If you’re charged up and have time when you finish the Actions suggested for you, click the ‘Reload’ button in the dialog box and get your next set immediately.
You can also switch out of the ‘timed release mode’ altogether with the Delivery Timing option in Settings. This lets you both do as many things at once as you want, without the interruption of our break suggestions, and let’s you skip around if you want to jump ahead to a different segment or work out of order.
The other option is the Explore Page. Here you can pick any device or app to focus on, and get safer in the areas you choose. Most of the things here are somewhere in your Privacy Path, but when you finish them here they disappear from your path – and your scores rise as you complete Actions here too.
Priiv Over Time
The world is not static, and neither is Priiv. Your path will change over time, for several reasons.
First, we’re constantly adding and updating the content and recommendations in the app. As we make changes, new things will appear, and even segments you’ve completed will reappear when they aren’t empty anymore.
In some areas, protections decay over time or it’s just smart to check back in once in a while. Priiv will automatically remind you when that is true.
And the world changes too. New privacy violations or risks in the devices and apps you use will bring new counter-measures. News events like breaches that impact your world will also generate alerts and new suggestions.
Over time, you’ll enter maintenance mode, and there is no doubt we will be able to automate more and more of our protections. But Priiv will stand guard and let you know when there is something you should know about or have to do.
This is all true of Privacy Tools as well. New tools and even categories will become available, and the tools you use and that we recommend will change over time. We have some interesting things planned in this area.
Our Promise
Managing your privacy is probably not an area where we can claim the journey is the reward. But the journey is effective, and rewarding. We promise to make it as easy as possible.
