One troublesome concept underlying the internet is that internet companies can recoup the enormous costs of supplying websites and services by collecting personal data about you that can be sold for targeted advertising.Â
However, should you have an expectation of privacy when using the internet? What information about you should be strictly private? The intricacies of these questions were brought into sharp detail by a recent Supreme Court of Canada judgment (https://tinyurl.com/2s3w8kv7).
The court ruled that a little-understood bit of computer code, called an internet protocol address, or IP address, is your personal, private property.
An IP address is a unique series of numbers and periods assigned to your internet-connected device by the company you pay for internet access, called your internet service provider or ISP. Your ISP can use an IP address it assigned to identify the owner of that computer by name and address.
Not only that, your ISP keeps a record tied to your IP address of every website you visit and the data you download and can be forced to give up this information by court order.Â
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling requires Canadian police to get judicial approval to access your IP address for use in an investigation. The controversy is that this effectively places another level of red tape in the way of a police investigation. The confusing part is that any website can view your IP address and use it to determine your geographic location and your ISP, track your computer, and block you from viewing content such as the US version of Netflix.
Visit a website called IP Location Finder (https://www.iplocation.net/) and click on Show More Details to view what any website knows about you.
If you’re concerned about leaking your IP address to any website and the recording of your private activity by your ISP, you can resort to using a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN will hide your real IP address and can make your computer or mobile device appear to be in another country. Additionally, data sent between the VPN server and your computer is encrypted and transmitted inside a “tunnel” that is inaccessible to anyone, even your ISP.Â
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If you’re connected to the public Wi-Fi in a coffee shop, hotel, or airport, a VPN will prevent skilled hackers from intercepting your data, such as banking transactions or passwords.Â
You have a choice of two types of VPN. One is a proxy service such as that found in Opera (https://www.opera.com), a free internet browser similar to Google Chrome, Edge, or Firefox. Its VPN will hide your IP address and encrypt your traffic, but only while using the Opera browser. Any other browser or a mobile app, such as Facebook or Instagram, will still reveal your real IP address.Â
The other drawback is that Opera’s free VPN only has three countries to choose from as your virtual location.
To completely mask your computer or mobile device, you’ll need a VPN app or program which hides the entire computer behind a replacement IP address and encrypts all data.
A retail VPN will offer you hundreds of servers all over the world, keep no logs of your activity, nor disclose any of your personal information. There are many and you should be guided by cost, number of servers, and reviews.Â
Check out complete VPN reviews at TheBestVPN (https://thebestvpn.com/) and CNET (https://tinyurl.com/yatvke5k). PureVPN (www.purevpn.com), which I use, NordVPN (https://nordvpn.com), and ExpressVPN (www.expressvpn.com) are consistently rated highly.  Â
Experts strongly advise against “free” VPNs since they often make a profit by displaying ads, selling data to advertisers, or severely limiting the internet speed. However, PC Mag has reviews of the 10 best free VPNs (https://tinyurl.com/2cw9bppy) if you would like to try one before buying.
Be aware that a VPN will slow your connection speed, sometimes significantly, and if you try to access streaming services such as U.S. Netflix, Hulu, or the BBC, you could end up having your account cancelled after several warnings.
All links in this column can be found at my website at www.rayser.ca/online.Â
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