Data Privacy and Mailing Hard Drives

Thanks to an affinity for films like Minority Report, Enemy of the State, and Anon, I take my data privacy seriously. Do you?

Thanks to an affinity for films like Minority Report, Enemy of the State, and Anon, I take my data privacy seriously. I hide my email address and routinely edit my Twitter interests and Facebook ad preferences to make it more difficult for advertisers to summarize my actual interests.

Despite my adamant digital security, I did something unthinkable to fellow privacy nerds last week: I sent a digital backup drive containing personal information to a virtual stranger.

Let me back up a bit. I sold my PS4 for a hefty sum of money in late December. Before trading, I backed up the console’s hard drive to keep my game saves when I eventually purchased a PS5. Despite being prudent, I failed to realize a PS5 cannot read a PS4 backup. Instead of backing up the entire drive, I should have saved the individual game saves to a USB drive ( or PS+).

A few weeks ago, I purchased a PS5 during an online inventory drop. When the device arrived, I realized my mistake. Instead of giving up, I began looking for options. A fellow writer I’ve connected with a few times digitally announced on Twitter that they were selling a…