Cookies are a great tool for a good website's performance, but they also pose a privacy risk if they are not managed well. This simple presentation covers privacy issues emerging from the use of cookies, and what you can do about it.

1. COOKIE MANAGEMENT
EFFECT OF COOKIES ON YOUR PRIVACY
PRESENTED BY HARRIS MWASHALO
BUSINESS INFORMATION TECH & PRIVACY EVANGELIST

2. We all love cookies, right? What’s your favourite flavour?

3. Well, there’s one type of cookie that you
won’t find in an oven

4. Cookies are small text files that are placed on
your computer or mobile device by websites you
visit or certain emails you open. In essence a
cookie notifies a website when you return. Think
of a cookie as a unique and personal
identification card.

5. A tracking cookie at work
To illustrate a scenario of a cookie at work, picture this, you visit a website that
hosts online advertising from a third-party vendor. Consequently, as an
advertiser on the site, that third party vendor has the ability to place a cookie
on your computer. If they decide to place a cookie on your computer and you
visit another website that also has advertisement from the same third-party
vendor, then that vendor will know you have visited both websites. Of course
nothing malicious has occurred, but now the vendor is able to indirectly
determine all the sites you visit if they have cookies present on those sites. This
is just one example; cookies can collect a variety of other information

6. Privacy rights come up when one attempts to keep records or use tracking
device on other people They track behavioural information like the pages
and content you look at, when and how often you visit, what you search
for, whether you clicked on an ad or link, geographic region, language
preferences, and device features.

7. In this digital age we have become accustomed to targeted content. It’s
just a matter of how much we want or do not want advertisers and
corporations to know about our Internet surfing habits and how much of
this personalized behavioural advertising we want to see.
We are human beings, we are not 1000 likes on a web-page, but rather,
one thousand people who are interested in a content.

8. Websites should provide consumers with information about what personal
information they collect and how they’ll
use it.
Telecommunications companies like Safaricom collect customer information
but they use it when it’s appropriate to their own service area
(CIO East Africa Article).
If otherwise, there are certain laws protecting the consumer from any harm.

9. To see how powerful cookies are visit: privacy.net
Further reading: cookiecentral.com
Why privacy matters – By Glenn

10. After all this intel, what are the solutions?

11. One of the immediate solutions is adjusting your browser settings
(Firefox browser demo)

12. Third party cookies are considered to be underground cookies, which can be
hard to regulate. Therefore, the Communications Commission of Kenya should
do something about this. The government should realize cookies invade the
privacy of Kenyan citizens protected by the Kenyan constitution, as spelt out in
Article 32 section 36 (2)

13. SEC_RITY IS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT ‘U’

14. FREE THE WEB
- THANK YOU! -