Eight Steps to Protect Your Digital Privacy After a Bad Breakup
Even a “good” breakup is emotionally draining. If the person you ended your relationship with turns out to be malicious, that’s a whole different story. Not only will you have to deal with the emotional fallout from the separation, but you will also have to figure out how to protect yourself from possible harassment. Putting physical distance between you and your ex is the first step, but it’s also important to consider your digital privacy. If you’ve been using shared accounts for streaming services, know each other’s phone passwords, or share access to financial accounts, then it’s time to take a step-by-step review and lock your accounts to prevent unauthorized access from your ex.
The folks at Refuge Tech Safety, an organization that helps women and children facing economic and technological violence, have put together an excellent guide to the digital divide to help you through the process. While it’s all worth reading and following, these eight steps will help you get started.
Protect your most important accounts
Start by changing the passwords for your important accounts. This may include:
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Your bank account
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Other financial accounts such as PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, Zelle, etc.
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Your investment accounts (including mutual funds, cryptocurrencies, retirement funds, emergency accounts, etc.)
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Passwords for your phone , laptop, tablet and any other personal technical devices.
Start using a password manager
I always recommend upgrading to a good password manager to securely store sensitive data including passwords, account details, IDs, etc. and this is as good a time as any. My recommendations include 1Password and Bitwarden (for most people) and KeePass (for more tech-savvy people). You should also check your most important accounts, such as your Google account. Consider the following steps:
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Change your Apple ID password and set up two-factor authentication.
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If you have an iPhone with iOS 16 or later, follow the security check steps . Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Security Check .
You should also set up two-factor authentication for all your accounts. This can be done easily if you set up an authentication app such as Google Authenticator , Microsoft Authenticator , or even a password manager. (Most password managers also store your two-factor authentication keys.)
If you already use a password manager, change your master password.
Now is the time to change your master password for your password manager, even if you don’t think your ex ever knew it. If warranted, you might even consider switching to a different password manager.
Hide your location
We live in a hyper-connected world, and every device tracks your location to some degree. If you want to hide your location from your ex, start by turning off location tracking at the cloud service level. To get started, go to your Google location history settings and select Turn Off . You can also click the Manage History button to delete your location history data.
If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, turn off location access for your ex through Apple’s Find My app or any other location tracking apps like Life360. You can even turn off location services on your phone completely until you feel it’s safe to do so.
Block your email
If you have email accounts other than Google or iCloud, change the passwords for those as well. Consider preventing your ex from contacting you via email. Most email services have a sender blocking feature that is useful in such situations. You should also make sure that your account recovery phone number and email addresses are yours and not your ex’s.
Protect your social media, streaming, gaming and fitness accounts.
While it may be tempting to simply delete any potentially triggering social media app after a breakup, it’s best to protect your account beforehand.
Even if you haven’t been deleted, make sure your accounts are protected with a password manager and two-factor authentication. Make sure your account recovery information is yours, make your account private, remove followers or friends associated with your ex, and block any accounts you don’t know that might actually belong to your ex (some services like Instagram , allow you to block multiple linked accounts at the same time).
Many social media and streaming apps allow you to check which other devices you’ve logged in from. and log out remotely. Do it in this way. If you shared a streaming site account with your ex, it’s best to log out. Change your password or open a new account.
The same advice applies to your fitness accounts, including Strava and others, which may make your data visible to others. Think before you post any details about your workouts online, and make sure it’s not something your ex can see. If you and your ex shared a gaming device, you should consider resetting your settings and logging in again.
Separate shopping and food delivery accounts.
General e-commerce sites and delivery apps may reveal your current address to your ex if you forget they have access. Reset passwords on all of them, log out of unused devices, and consider creating new accounts to avoid being tracked.
Hide trip information
If you frequently use apps to hail taxis, book hotels, and book flights, it’s worth doing a quick password reset to protect yourself from unauthorized access. While resetting your password will likely suffice, keep in mind that most apps have an equally good competitor, so you may also want to opt for the nuclear option and switch to services to better protect your location and activities.