Lisa’s Story

With every move you make online, your personal information is quickly siphoned off into a multi-trillion-dollar-a-year industry.

The names and addresses of people you communicate with, the books you read and podcasts you listen to, all your information from any online dating profiles, your health data and drug prescriptions, credit card purchases, monthly bank statements, tax returns — it’s all up for grabs.
Your personal data isn’t stolen just when a large-scale breach takes place – personal data is taken every day from every one of us.

Let’s look at Lisa.

She grew up during the Internet Age with information just a click away. Lisa has accepted cookies on websites her whole life. Like most of us, she doesn’t read the terms and conditions. She has no idea her way of connecting to the world has been weaponized against her all along.
As soon as Lisa gets up in the morning, her data is mined in real-time. While she makes her coffee, she scrolls through Instagram as the app builds a profile of her based on every like she gives. Even when she’s not on Instagram, the app still tracks her location and activity and cross-references it with what her Facebook friends do and where she and her friends are.

She reads the news to stay informed of current events, while each site she visits stays informed on her life, using AI to build a psychological profile. Through these profiles, websites determine what news to show her – and as a result, Lisa sees only those new stories that align with her point of view and interests. The news site she visits recommends a piece featuring her local town and an article about student loans. “How convenient”, she thinks.

After getting ready, Lisa goes to work. Her map features know where she is headed, and direct her to her usual route without a single button being pushed. She always accepts when her apps request her location, but these moments exhibit only a fraction of the data these apps collect on her movements throughout the day.

She stops at a Starbucks to buy a bagel and swipes her card. She doesn’t know her purchases are being recorded – by Starbucks, by her credit card company and even by the other apps on her phone, running in the background. She doesn’t know that each of them will sell that record to anyone willing to pay for it – without caring very much who that third-party is or what they plan to do with that data.

While at work, Lisa puts her phone in airplane mode so she won’t be disturbed – not knowing that even in airplane mode, her phone continues to record her location and other data, no matter where she goes or what she does. She participates in a meeting with other colleagues over Zoom – not realizing that Zoom has access to every app that she has open on her device and has her permission to record her conversation and anything else that they want from any of those apps and then use that information in any way they want.
When her Zoom call is finished, Lisa turns her phone back on, and as soon as it is connected to a network, all of that data that was collected while it was in airplane mode gets shared with Apple, Google and all of her apps, like Facebook, Amazon, TikTok and others.

After work Lisa goes to the gym where she uses her watch to record her pulse and blood pressure, as well as how many steps she takes. All of that info is sent to her phone and from there, gets shared with a dozen different companies – all of whom she’s provided permission to collect this data. While some companies may use this data to advertise the latest health trends to her, insurance companies buy this data to help set her insurance rates, and banks buy this data to help set her interest rates.

After the gym, Lisa goes home to participate in an online class – European History – where they discuss over Google Hangouts how dictators throughout history have been dependent on secret police forces surveilling the population to control them, control what information they have access to and to root out resistance. The history books write as though this was simply the past. That would never happen today. The class doesn’t even consider how Google AI has access to everything on her computer and is quickly indexing and analyzing the data for her profile.
After her class, she calls her boyfriend for about an hour, blissfully unaware someone is listening in to the intricacies of her day. From her living room, an Amazon Echo records her every conversation, and her digital chaperones reach deeper into her life.

Then Lisa decides to join her friends for a night out. She checks on Facebook, figures out where they are and goes to meet them. They laugh and chat for a few hours before splitting the bill with Venmo. Within nanoseconds, every app on her phone now knows where she went, who she went with, what she purchased, how much she spent and how she paid. Lisa and her friends head home while their location is tracked each step of the way.

Before heading to bed, Lisa checks her messages. Her friend sent a TikTok of a rapper they listen to. Lisa watches the video and comments on it, not realizing that hundreds of companies just bought that data in real time. She opens her Amazon app and under the items recommended for her is the rapper’s latest music. It feels invasive–to have devices be so familiar with you that they can predict your behavior.

Lisa shrugs it off, as we all do, and heads to bed. The cycle is not broken as she sleeps – her mobile operator and all her apps all know where she is spending the night and who she’s spending it with, or not spending it with… And this process will start again in the day ahead, forming an endless stream of data informing others about every decision Lisa makes in life.
And it won’t stop until Lisa and the rest of us take a stand and change the game.

Lisa’s story is our story.

There are countless ways our data is weaponized against us, and we cannot allow this imbalance of power to grow further.
Despite the state of surveillance that has already been created, it continues to advance toward even more control over us. With artificial intelligence determining what information to show us and now auto completing our thoughts, our free will is being hijacked.
Why do we have to give up our personal information, our free will, our freedom to think and do what we want, just to enjoy the convenience of a digital lifestyle?
We formed the 4FREEDOM Movement with the sole purpose of empowering you to take back control of your personal data – enabling you to enjoy the convenience of a digital lifestyle without having to give up your free will.
Our technologies and services are designed so you can safeguard what’s rightfully yours and change the game while you’re at it.
Tech companies, governments, mobile operators and cybercriminals are constantly innovating to find new ways to collect and use your data. Because of this, 4FREEDOM will continue to innovate to stay one step ahead and help you take back control of your personal data. Because you shouldn’t be profiled based on your activity. Because corporations collect our data, but we suffer the consequences. Because we didn’t consent to giving up our freedom.

• Allow people to communicate and share information, including files, without worrying about their conversations being intercepted
• Limit the ability of browsers, websites, apps, government agencies and mobile operators to track our activity across devices
• Let people stay connected using the latest 5G and WiFi networks while remaining invisible to others on those networks and even to the ISP’s and mobile operators themselves.

Tech companies, governments, mobile operators and cybercriminals are constantly innovating to find new ways to collect and use your data. Because of this, 4FREEDOM will continue to innovate to stay one step ahead and help you take back control of your personal data. Because you shouldn’t be profiled based on your activity. Because corporations collect our data, but we suffer the consequences. Because we didn’t consent to giving up our freedom.

This movement was born out of the belief that everyone deserves peace of mind when it comes to their personal information. 4FREEDOM leaves your data exactly where it should be: in your hands.