Written by m4dz

This Sunday (Jan. 28^th) is Data Privacy Day. We at alwaysdata want to take this opportunity to tell you about why this topic is so important and our opinions about it.

Private Data and Privacy

The desire for privacy is a key component of our psychological behavior. Privacy ensures that we can make informed decisions by our own free will. If you know that you’re under surveillance, or if you feel some kind of pressure against, you are more likely to conform to general norms. You lose your freedom of choice.

In our digital world, privacy means that nobody is able to watch and control your digital life. Nobody likes to have their e‑mails read or their browsing history or GPS tracks analyzed. Many online services collect these kinds of data in order to filter the contents shown to you and make you addicted to a unique platform. For some companies, this is how they make money. Their business models consist solely of collecting and using your personal data.

You may not realize it, but you produce data every second. Call histories, health data, connection sessions, etc., are examples of collected data. These data, however, belong to you.

Beginning in May, the GDPR will go into effect. This regulation intends to limit and legally frame the use of personal data. The producer of data is its the legal owner. No one will be allowed to deprive you of your right to use and protect those data. Likewise, no one will be allowed to use your data to recommend services to you or to track you without your permission.

This means that any and all services must ask for your consent before they can collect your data, and they must clearly state how they plan to use them. The regulation ensures that you will be able to disable some collection processes without having to alter your use of the service. It also introduces the concept of data portability, which means that anyone will be able to ask service providers for his or her personal data.

In our little digital world, the regulation is a revolution. For more than a decade, the Web’s business model has been based on data collection. You gain access to free services in exchange for letting companies collect your personal data. In most cases, the price you are forced to pay by relinquishing your data is greater than the benefit of the service you receive in return. At alwaysdata, we don’t want to collect your personal data. In fact, we don’t need it. You pay your hosting services with money. For you, it’s a guarantee that your data stay yours; for us, it ensures that you pay a fair price and that you are respected as an individual and a free citizen.

If you’re interested in privacy, the Nothing to Hide documentary is a good resource for learning about these challenges.

Protect your data easily with alwaysdata

With data portability, you are now able to get back your personal data and host them. alwaysdata’s hosting services are perfectly suited for this use case. Offering the most-used web languages, database technologies, and large storage even in a shared hosting beginning at € 8.00, alwaysdata makes sure that you’re ready!

Hosting one’s data begins with hosting one’s files. Let’s take a look at some open source solutions that are ready to deploy on alwaysdata:

• Nextcloud (PHP / MariaDB ou MySQL): a solution to centralize and share documents. Nextcloud allows you to host documents, contacts, agenda, etc. in the same location, share them easily, and collaborate.
• Cozy Cloud (Go / CouchDB): a data hub that allows you to gather all your personal data, including documents, banking, and health data, etc. It embeds a way to connect to your online services, allowing you to gather and extract your data from them.
• Seafile (Python / SQLite): an online drive that syncs your documents between your devices and your server.
• Syncthing (Go): a sync solution with sharing features that allows you to access your data from anywhere.

This list is far from exhaustive, and you’re free to choose the solution that best meets your needs. Starting in the near future, our marketplace will allow you to install these apps from your cockpit.

Your data, safe

Concerns about security remain, and you need to be able to trust your hosting solution. alwaysdata, as an IT expert, guarantees your security. Our staff ensures that all equipment and services are safe and robust.

You don’t have to worry about securing your server, equipment, or services because we worry for you. Likewise, you don’t need to subscribe to a VPS or a dedicated plan to ensure that you are truly private. Our shared plans use a lightweight container technology that makes it impossible for an intruder to access your data. Even if an app that is hosted on the same server as yours is compromised, you run no risk. You won’t suffer from any consumption peaks from your neighbor, and your app will remain available.

alwaysdata provides the quality and security you need on your own private cloud.

Today is a good day to test some solutions and install your preferred cloud. All it takes is subscribing to a shared host offer.