Increasing Security

I’m increasing security at Chris Lindsay Counselling; not in a psychological way, but rather technological.  As part of this, you will find a new email address on my contact page.

People in my field get very concerned about confidentiality and privacy of information.  The sheer volume of hours my poor bottom end has spent sitting through staff meetings and workshops dedicated to this stuff tells the story.  Said bottom end and its colleague, my brain, competed in growing numb and eventually threatened to mutiny if I did not stop treating them so poorly.

So I went into private practice.  No staff meetings, and workshops are my choice.  Brain and bottom end cheered up.  I feel kind of bad for those brains and bottom ends out there condemned to long hours of punishment once again, as Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner called last week for stronger measures in protecting privacy.  The “rapidly changing digital landscape” demands increasing security measures, her report concluded.  As does the embarrassing fact that “this year’s statistics show a 34 per cent increase in snooping cases across all sectors.”

Snooping refers to peeping at people’s personal information without permission.  Let’s say someone in a service organization gathers an innocent Ontarian’s personal information – with permission – and dutifully inputs it into a top secret file.  The snooper is another person in the organization who, for various reasons (such as realizing that the file contains information on her cousin’s ex-boyfriend) decides that it would be a great idea to get a look at that file.

This actually happens.  I once went to a scare-you-straight workshop, where the presenter gleefully paraded out examples of employees escorted to the front door and/or given whopping fines for snooping through, for instance, their neighbour’s or their ex-wife’s file.

I have to admit that the passionate report of Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner did not motivate me (no offense, Ma’am) nearly as much a couple of YouTube videos handed to me by those saucy algorithms.

First, The Linux Experiment promoted Proton Mail as a way to get away from Google and its snoopy ways.  I may not have anyone else in my one-person operation to snoop through files, but I have used Gmail for a long time.

Ironically, I used to be an outspoken advocate of email caution, let’s say back around 2010-ish.  For a long time, I went to great lengths to avoid use of any of my clients’ personal information in email.

Then a funny lawyer convinced me I was being paranoid.  I attended yet another workshop on privacy of information, where I thoroughly enjoyed the wit of the lawyer presenting.  He argued that therapy types get too concerned about email as a privacy risk.

As I recall, the argument had to do with the sheer volume of email in the world making it unlikely that information would be pillaged.  That, and getting consent, which means informing people that if they send personal information by email, they need to know that privacy cannot be completely guaranteed.  It’s their choice.

So I followed his advice and relaxed about it.  Until recently.

A second YouTuber rode the algorithms to my digital doorstep.  She and talked about how Google scans and analyses “every email going into your inbox for Gmail.”

I started looking into it.  Seems like things are not as simple as they were back in old days.  In 2010, email was an open book.  Or a postcard, more specifically.  The same phrase appears in many articles on email security: “Email is like a postcard.”  In other words, anyone who touches it can freely read it.  Here’s a rather sobering article explaining just how many people this can be.

In 2024, email is increasingly encrypted.  Not always, and sometimes you need to take specific steps to “turn on” encryption.  You might want to look into the details of your own email service to find out if you’re still mailing out postcards.

Encryption helps.  With encryption, your email is less of a postcard, and more of a traditional letter.  There’s an envelope around what you’ve written to stop some prying eyes.  However, while Gmail is encrypted, Google itself opens the envelope and reads… something.

From what I can gather, Google operates somewhere between a diabolical villain, ransacking every digital molecule of our information in its quest for world domination; and a well-meaning grandmother benevolently scanning “meta-data” to help us buy toys.  (I’m still not entirely clear what “meta-data” is, Granny.  I’ve got my eye on you!).

You know what?  Kindly grandma or world dominator, there’s no question snooping happens.  Even if people freely consent to send personal information to me by email, none of us really know what exactly is snooped.

So while this may not be a big, hairy conspiracy of data thievery, I’m migrating from Gmail to Proton Mail.  Here’s a nifty little article explaining the differences.

Proton mail does not have all the bells and whistles of Gmail, but it’s way more private and confidential.  Apparently they not only don’t want to snoop emails, they can’t.  They can’t see what’s in emails, because technology babble-babble, blah, blah.  (It sounds pretty convincing.)

Anyway, I’m sure the Privacy Commissioner will sleep more easily at night.  You’re welcome, Ma’am.

Oh!  And don’t send me email to [email protected] any more, please.  Email should now be sent to [email protected].