I’ll be watching you...

We all have a right to privacy; in fact, South Africa’s Constitution fiercely upholds that. But with the rise of social media, the law is struggling to keep up. The Protection of Personal Information Act 2013 (PoPI) tries to ensure the protection of your private and personal data.

But what happens when we freely give it away without knowing it? Let’s be honest: most of us don’t actually read through the terms and conditions of the apps we download.

Gmail

With 1,5 billion users, Gmail dominates all other email services. But most-used doesn’t always equate to most trustworthy. How confident are you about entrusting your most private information to them? Can they read your emails? The short answer is yes – but that’s not such a bad thing.

In 2018, when The Wall Street Journal reported that third-party developers could read your emails, access your Google Calendar, Google Contacts and the personal information on your Google profile, there was a flurry of panic. While this is partly true, the fact is that if a company outside Google can read your emails, you probably gave them permission to do so at some point or another. Thankfully, you can also remove their access. Here’s how:

1. Go to myaccount.google.com.

2. Select the tab ‘Security’.

3. Scroll down to ‘Third-party apps with account access’ and click ‘Manage third-party access’.

There you will find all the third-party apps you have given permission to access your Gmail account (probably without even knowing it).