We continue Cybersecurity Awareness Month with Amnezia. Last time, we worked out what data is collected about you even before you connect to online services. Let’s move on.
You open Google and it reminds you of what you searched for a month ago. Instagram suggests accounts based on your interests in your city. You order a taxi, and the app knows where you’ll be traveling from.
How does this work, and when did the services manage to get to know us so well? In this article, we’ll use Google, Meta, and Uber as examples to break down what services know about users and what exactly a VPN helps hide.
We use Google, Meta, and Uber as generalized examples. With a number of caveats, their place could be taken by other search engines — Bing or Baidu — other carriers — Lyft or Bolt — and other social networks — TikTok or Snapchat
How a VPN Hides Data from Websites
A VPN affects the network layer primarily: your IP address, the approximate geolocation tied to that IP, and the visibility of your traffic to your provider. But if you’ve logged into an account, allowed cookies, or let an app track your location, the service will keep identifying you by other signs. Those are what we’ll talk about.
The search giant associates the following with a user:
- Search queries and interactions with Google services, including the time a search query was sent and other data.
- Information about your browser and device.
- Location data — based on GPS, IP address, Wi-Fi signals, and cell towers.
- Information you’ve provided yourself, such as your “Home” and “Work” locations.
In other words, Google sees what you search for, which places interest you, where you usually connect from, and what actions you take within the ecosystem.
What a VPN Changes
When you connect through a VPN, the site sees the IP address of the VPN server, not yours. The approximate location determined by IP may change. But a VPN doesn’t delete your search history and activity in Google services, and it doesn’t change the GPS data on your device.
A VPN doesn’t guarantee that a service won’t be able to determine your real location
Google collects not only your IP address but also other data, such as your device’s location, account information, and usage history.
Meta
- Device type and identifiers.
- IP address and network information.
- Actions within the platform: content viewed, interactions, and how often and how long you use it.
- Location data, if it’s available through your device settings.
- Information from partners about your actions on other sites and in apps.
- Cookies and similar identifiers.
The service tracks which topics and formats interest you, which accounts you interact with, when you’re active, and which advertising signals are tied to your device.
What a VPN Changes
Meta will get the VPN server’s address instead of your real IP. But this won’t affect your profile within Facebook or Instagram, won’t reset cookies, and won’t hide your actions inside your account. A VPN also doesn’t substitute the geolocation passed to the app via GPS.
Uber
- Location data while you use the service.
- Your device’s IP address.
- Device model, OS, and its version.
- Advertising and other device identifiers.
- Mobile network data.
- System language.
If Uber has access to geolocation, a VPN doesn’t substitute the coordinates passed to the app. As a result, Uber knows where a trip begins, where it’s headed, when you use the service, and which device and account the order is placed from.
Uber has a complicated history with privacy and data handling overall. In 2015, a BuzzFeed journalist exposed the God View feature — it let the service’s employees track passengers.
Two years later, it came out that the service handled requests from officials and regulators in a particular way to avoid penalties. The Greyball feature let Uber dodge inspections in regions where its operations were banned. Drawing on identifiers such as a user’s location and data from open sources, the service denied rides to inspectors.
What a VPN Changes
As in the previous cases, a VPN will hide your usual IP address from Uber and may change the approximate location determined by IP. But it won’t hide your GPS coordinates, trip route, account data, and order history.
What a VPN Will Help With in Terms of Anonymization
A VPN doesn’t guarantee full anonymity when working with online services. It can:
- Hide your real IP address from the site you visit.
- Change the approximate geolocation determined by IP.
- Encrypt the connection between your device and the VPN server so your provider can’t see the contents of that connection.
- Protect data from AitM attacks — the interception of information between sender and recipient, which threatens a leak of sensitive data.
- Reduce the amount of information tied specifically to your home or mobile IP.
What a VPN Won’t Help With
A secure connection alone isn’t enough to:
- delete cookies,
- hide your actions in an account,
- turn off GPS,
- revoke an app’s permissions,
- completely change the digital fingerprint of your browser or device,
- anonymize you to a service you’re already logged into.
Data Protection Is a Joint Effort
Amnezia VPN protects the network layer of privacy: it hides your real IP and encrypts the connection up to the VPN server. At the same time, we don’t promise full anonymity — only you decide what to tell services and what privacy settings to set.
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