Digital Privacy

The Best To-Do List Apps for 2026: Privacy, Features, and Cost Compared Introduction To-do list apps are one of the most personal pieces of software on your phone or computer. They hold your daily plans, work tasks, grocery lists, and sometimes even private notes. But not all apps treat that data with the same care—some mine your information for advertising, share it with third parties, or store it on servers with weak security. ...

OpenAI’s New Privacy Filter Automatically Masks Your Personal Data in Documents If you’ve ever pasted a document full of customer names, email addresses, or phone numbers into ChatGPT, you’ve probably wondered: Is this information safe? A new open-source tool from OpenAI aims to reduce that worry. ...

Five Things You Should Never Tell an AI Chatbot to Keep Your Money Safe AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Copilot have become go‑to tools for quick answers, help with writing, and even personal finance advice. They can simplify tasks, from drafting emails to summarizing investment options. But that convenience comes with a real privacy trade‑off. The conversations you have with these bots are often stored, sometimes reviewed by human trainers, and could be exposed in a data breach. Knowing what not to share is the first step to protecting your money and identity. ...

OpenAI’s New Privacy Filter Lets You Mask Personal Data Before Using AI — Here’s How If you have ever paused before pasting a client email, a patient note, or an internal memo into an AI assistant, you understand the core tension in using these tools. Once the text leaves your machine, even under strong data handling policies, there is no local guarantee. OpenAI released the Privacy Filter to address this specific gap. It is an open-source model designed to strip out personal identifiers before that text goes anywhere near a cloud API. ...

OpenAI Just Released a Privacy Filter – Here’s How It Works and How to Use It On April 22, 2026, OpenAI released an open-source tool called the OpenAI Privacy Filter. It automatically detects and masks personally identifiable information (PII) in documents—things like names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive data. The tool is designed to help people clean up documents before sharing them or using them with AI services. It’s available on GitHub, can run locally on your own machine, and doesn’t require sending your data to OpenAI’s servers. ...

Beyond the Ratings: How Secure Are This Year’s Best To-Do List Apps? Intro Every January, millions of people resolve to get organized. And every December, Wirecutter (The New York Times’s product-review arm) publishes an updated guide to the best to‑do list apps. Their 2026 round‑up, released in late 2025, named three top contenders based on features, design, and reliability. But if you’re like most users, you probably didn’t ask one question: what happens to my data after I type my tasks into these apps? ...

AI Is Eroding Your Privacy: What You Need to Know and How to Protect Yourself Smart assistants, chatbots, recommendation engines—AI tools have become nearly invisible helpers in daily life. They suggest what to watch, help draft emails, and answer questions instantly. But each interaction often comes with a privacy cost that is easy to overlook. A recent Substack article by Heather Parry, titled “AI’s erosion of privacy,” brings the growing tension between convenience and data protection into sharp focus. Understanding how these systems collect and use your information is the first step to protecting yourself without abandoning the tools you rely on. ...

Protect Your Privacy in an AI World: A Practical Guide The convenience of AI tools comes with a growing privacy cost. Every query you type into ChatGPT, Google Bard, or similar services generates data that companies can use for training, analytics, and sometimes sharing with third parties. A recent piece by Heather Parry on Substack lays out how this erosion of privacy is accelerating as AI becomes more embedded in daily life. Whether you use AI for work, study, or casual exploration, it’s worth understanding what’s happening and how to take back some control. ...

How AI Tools Are Eroding Your Privacy — and What You Can Do About It Intro More apps and devices now include AI features that make life easier—voice assistants, auto-generated replies, smart photo organization, chatbot help. But each of these conveniences comes with a hidden trade-off: your personal data is being collected, analyzed, and often shared in ways that are not transparent. A recent piece on Heather Parry’s Substack highlighted how quickly this erosion of privacy is happening, and it’s a conversation every internet user should pay attention to. This article walks through what’s actually going on, why it matters, and how you can take back some control. ...

The Best To-Do List Apps of 2026 (and How to Keep Your Tasks Private) Your to-do list might seem harmless—just a list of errands, deadlines, or project steps. But think about what else it contains: your daily routines, work contacts, location data if you add tags, and sometimes even passwords or personal notes stored in descriptions. That seemingly mundane data can reveal a lot about your life, and not all to-do list apps treat it with the same care. ...