But clicking the “private” browsing option may not protect you as much as you think, some privacy experts say.
These options have different names—Private Browsing in Safari and Firefox, and Incognito Mode in Chrome—but the functionality is similar for each. In these private modes, the selected browser does not keep a log of visited sites, cached pages, or stored information such as credit card numbers and addresses. It also prevents information from sessions from being stored in the cloud.
Although using these options adds a certain level of protection online, privacy experts say it doesn’t prevent a user from being tracked entirely — potentially limiting the protections women can afford in this new legal landscape.
“We need to understand that often simply going into a private mode does very little to prevent third-party tracking and especially law enforcement tracking,” said Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. and an associate in New. York University School of Law.
What does private browser mode do?
As designed, private browsing modes are best suited to protect your web activity from other people using the same device, experts say, but it doesn’t do much beyond providing that local shield.
“It could be useful, for example, for trans and queer kids who worry about being tracked by their parents, and for people who might be in a situation where they can’t safely share their computer with people of others who may have access to browser history,” says Fox Cahn.
Private mode can also help reduce tracking across websites. In Chrome, for example, users are told: “Websites see you as a new user and won’t know who you are unless you sign in.”
“People choose to browse the web privately for many reasons,” said Parisa Tabriz, vice president of Chrome Browser. “Some people want to protect their privacy on shared or shared devices, or exclude certain activities from their browsing history. Incognito helps with these use cases.”
Typically when a person surfs the Internet, companies will use tracking devices known as “cookies” to track digital activity from site to site for more targeted advertising. Depending on the browser and the user’s choices, private browsing mode can reduce that sharing of information on the site. But with some browsers, users need to know how to select these additional options, beyond simply selecting private mode.
Safari, for example, has a default Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature, which limits interface tracking while allowing sites to continue to function normally. Its “Prevent tracking on websites” and “Block all cookies” options. are additional steps to protect users, but these features are separate from private mode. Meanwhile, Chrome advises users that they should choose to block third-party cookies, even in Incognito mode. Firefox added new default features last year, including “total cookie protection” to stop users from being tracked online, as well as “smart blocking” to allow third-party logins through sites like Facebook or Twitter while still working to prevent tracking.
Private modes are also limited in their effectiveness when it comes to IP addresses, which are associated with the device and can be used to geo-locate the user.
“Whether you are in privacy mode or not, your IP address should always be known to the recipient, because when your browser sends the request to receive data, the server receiving the request needs to know where to send that data, “said Andrew Reifers, associate professor at the University of Washington’s School of Information. An Internet service provider may also record a user’s online activity, regardless of browser privacy settings.
Some browsers provide additional protection to address this. Safari has a “Hide IP Address” option separate from Private Browsing mode that, when enabled, sends the user’s browser information to two different entities, one receiving the IP address but not the website being visited, and the other receiving the page of the Internet, but not the IP address. . That way, no one has all the information about a user. Other browsers also have options to mask IP addresses, such as VPN add-ons or “disable Geo IP” capabilities that prevent browsers from sharing a user’s location with websites.
What do private browser modes not protect?
Internet browsing is saved in two places: on the local computer and from the pages visited. When a user in private browsing mode goes to Facebook, for example, there won’t be a record of that visit saved on their device, but there will be a record of that visit saved in their account data on Facebook and from Facebook advertising analytics.
Recording users who leave online, with or without private browsing options enabled, creates a lot of uncertainty about how that data could be used as evidence by law enforcement in states that criminalize abortions. Tech companies have said little about how they would handle such requests. Groups promoting digital rights and reproductive freedoms are now warning people in these states to guard their digital footprints when searching for abortion information and resources online and sharing tips on how to do so.
Additionally, if someone is working on a company or school owned laptop, private browsing mode won’t do much. “If you have a computer where someone else is managing it, having privacy against that person is not really possible,” said Eric Rescorla, CTO at Mozilla. “If an employer owns your computer, they can put any kind of monitoring software on the computer they want and they can measure everything you do. So, no, it doesn’t protect you against that, but almost nothing would.”
Google Chrome also warns users that “Incognito Mode” cannot provide total protection in these cases. “When you’re in incognito mode, your activity may still be visible to the websites you visit, your employer or school, or your Internet service provider. We make this clear when we turn on Incognito Mode,” said Tabriz.
Users should also note that the protections offered in private mode are exclusive to web browsing, leaving any activity in smartphone apps unprotected. No matter how well private browsing mode works to protect user activity, it can’t help anywhere else. “Many of the apps we use don’t have a built-in incognito mode,” Reifers said. “You don’t really know what that app stores.”
What additional steps can you take to protect yourself online?
Beyond enabling private browsing modes and selecting additional privacy options provided by companies in their settings, there are some additional steps users can take to maximize digital privacy.
A VPN, or virtual private network, hides an IP address to make a user more anonymous online, effectively protecting who and where a user is. “A good first step would be to use a private browsing mode and a VPN together,” Rescorla said.
But using a VPN potentially gives the VPN operator access to your browsing activity. “Many of them will sell that information or certainly make it available to the police if they serve a warrant,” warns Fox Cahn.
Internet users may also consider turning to a browser like Tor, a secure and anonymous option that uses multiple proxy servers to keep any single server from fully tracking activity, according to privacy experts.
Above all, experts point out that Internet users should be aware that Internet activity is inherently not just private, regardless of browser settings. And while clearing browsing history and emptying cookie caches makes data recovery more difficult for third parties, it’s still not impossible with certain forensic tools and safeguards.
Fox Cahn points out that those concerned with data privacy such as abortion seekers should take as many steps as possible, even by buying a new device that is not traceable or using services like Tor. “It’s heavy, but it provides a lot more protection,” he said. “You have to keep in mind that all these things can do is reduce the amount of risk. None of them are absolutely perfect.”
