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The Truth About Online Privacy - NaPodPoMo 2025 #3 · Randy Unscripted

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  Randy Black: Randy Black.
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  Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Black. He's a troublemaker.
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  Welcome back to Randy Unscripted.
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  I'm Randy Black, and we're rolling through another podcast episode as a part of NAPOD Pomo. That's national
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  podcast post month where podcasters like me are creating and releasing 30 episodes in thirty days.
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  Today here on episode three for Napod Pomo, 11/03/2025,
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  I wanna explore a question that kinda impacts every one of us who spends any time online.
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  Do you really have
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  a right to privacy in The United States?
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  It's a question that sounds simple,
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  but the answer,
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  well,
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  it's a little more complicated than most people even realize.
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  We're gonna unpack what privacy actually means in our digital world, what laws exist to protect it,
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  and what you can do to take more control over your personal information today
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  on Randy unscripted.
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  Here's the first thing to understand.
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  There is no single federal law in The United States that says you have a right to privacy online.
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  It might surprise you,
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  but it's true.
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  While the constitution mentions privacy
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  indirectly,
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  it doesn't give us a broad guaranteed digital right.
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  The Fourth Amendment, for example, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures,
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  but that primarily applies to the government,
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  not to private companies.
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  So if a social media platform
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  or an app
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  collects all this personal data or it tracks your activity,
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  it's usually not breaking any law unless a specific regulation
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  applies.
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  Your right to privacy online
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  really depends on who's collecting the data,
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  what
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  kind of data it is, and
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  ultimately, it comes down to where you live.
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  Now it doesn't mean we're we're totally unprotected.
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  There are federal laws that cover privacy.
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  They're just very
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  specific in what they cover. Let's walk through a few of the key ones that exist out there.
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  The Federal Trade Commission,
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  Act gives the FTC,
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  that's Federal Trade Commission, power to act if a company misleads consumers
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  or it breaks promises about privacy.
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  So if they say they're protecting your data
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  and they don't, say there's a data breach like we saw major data breaches with Target and other companies in the last several years,
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  the FTC then has the right to step in and do something about that.
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  Then there's COPA.
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  COPA is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and it protects kids 13
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  by requiring
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  that they have parental consent before their information can be collected.
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  We also have the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Stored Communications Act,
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  and they address how that
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  digital communications can be accessed. But these laws were written back in the nineteen eighties,
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  long before we we lived our lives almost
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  entirely
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  online so that they're vague and don't truly apply to what we have going on today.
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  HIPAA, well, you've heard of it, I'm sure, protects your medical information,
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  but only when it's handled by covered
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  medical entities.
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  A lot of people don't realize that.
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  Then we have the Graham Leech Bliley Act, and it deals with how financial institutions
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  protect and share customer data today.
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  Each of these laws covers
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  one corner of the digital world we live in, but there's no single law that protects all of your online data
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  everywhere.
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  Since federal lawmakers haven't
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  yet stepped up and and passed a comprehensive privacy law, a number of states have stepped in and and tried to fill the gap.
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  California
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  was the first
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  with the California Consumer Privacy Act, the CCPA,
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  and later it expanded it, and it became the California
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  Privacy Rights Act.
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  These give residents the right to know what personal information companies collect,
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  to request the deletion of that data,
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  and then to be able opt out of having that data sold.
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  Other states like Virginia and Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah, they followed
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  with their own privacy laws,
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  and each one looks a little bit different,
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  but they all aim to give people more control over their data.
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  The tricky part in all this,
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  your rights change
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  depending on where you live.
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  A Californian and someone from Kentucky could be using the exact same app,
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  but their legal privacy protections
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  might be 100%
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  completely
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  different.
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  So what does all this mean for you as an everyday user?
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  Well, in short,
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  online privacy in The United States is a patchwork.
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  Some protections come from federal laws, some come from state laws, and some situations
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  really aren't covered much at all.
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  That can feel frustrating,
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  but
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  it's not hopeless.
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  You can take steps to safeguard
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  your own data.
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  Start first by paying attention to those I accept buttons on websites and in apps.
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  That privacy policy you scroll through really fast,
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  it actually tells you what they're going to do with your information.
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  Take the time to adjust your privacy settings on social media and on your mobile device to ensure that your data is protected.
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  Most platforms now include tools to limit what's collected and what's shared.
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  Keep an eye on your state laws.
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  They might already give you rights that you just didn't even know you had.
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  There's there've even been some proposals for a federal law like the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, but as of now,
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  nothing comprehensive
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  has passed in our national legislature and congress.
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  So let's close out today by sharing some some practical tips, some practical steps
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  to help you to protect your privacy online.
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  The first thing is to use a strong, unique password for every account you have.
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  An amazing way to do that is with a password manager. I personally recommend Bitwarden.
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  A lot of people in the past have used LastPass. They they had a data breach not too long ago, so I've kinda shied away from that. But there's Bitwarden, OnePass,
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  all kinds of password managers out there that secure and encrypt your passwords and will even generate passwords for you that are strong and complex.
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  And you just have to remember one password to get into that, your master password.
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  Another thing to do is to turn on two factor authentication whenever possible. And, yes, I agree. Two factor authentication can be annoying.
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  For instance, I work in education in the state of West Virginia, and every user in our tenant who's an adult, who's a staff member,
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  you have to use two factor authentication because we had too many accounts getting compromised.
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  So everyone's required to do it when they are off of our internal
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  state k 12 network.
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  And it's annoying,
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  but it is a sense of security.
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  It gives us the ability to secure those accounts.
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  Next thing you can do is be cautious about what personal information you post and and you share online.
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  Does everybody need to know your home address by putting it on your Facebook profile?
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  No. How about your phone number? Probably not. So protect that information if you can and try to try to not let it get out as much as possible.
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  You also can use browsers or extensions
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  that block trackers and limit data collection.
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  There's some great tools to do that. There's even some tools that you put on your network,
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  like a pie hole that blocks a lot of these things on your network by using it as your DNS resolver,
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  and they're amazing.
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  The last practical step I can give you is to always check your app permissions.
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  You might really be surprised at what those apps have access to. For example, when it asks to have access to your location,
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  it's tracking your maybe tracking your location
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  247,
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  365 anytime
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  your phone is on.
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  If it's asking to have access to your photos, it may be looking through your photos
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  all the time and collecting data from those. So be careful with those permissions. Check them and make sure you read through what they're actually doing.
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  Privacy isn't just about keeping secrets.
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  It's about control.
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  It's about knowing what's being collected, how it's being used, and who it's being shared with.
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  And that awareness,
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  knowing that,
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  puts the power
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  back in your hands.
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  So let's close out today. Do you have a right to privacy online
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  in The United States?
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  Not an all encompassing one,
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  at least not yet,
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  but that doesn't mean that you're powerless.
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  The more you understand how this system works,
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  the better
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  choices you can make to protect your digital life.
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  Thank you for joining me today here on Randy Unscripted.
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  I'm Randy Black, and this has been another episode for napod promo, national podcast post month, 30 episodes
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  in thirty days.
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  And if you're a podcaster listening right now, I wanna encourage you to jump in and join the challenge.
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  It is a great way to build consistency,
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  explore new ideas,
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  and ultimately
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  share your voice
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  with the world. Until next time, stay aware, stay informed,
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  and stay unscripted.
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  Okay. How much did we pay for this bad boy?