Firefox Monitor, Mozilla's password breach checking service, may soon be used to remove personal information from the Internet. Interested users of Firefox Monitor may join a waitlist to start using the service.
For this, it is necessary to sign-in to a Firefox Monitor account, or create a new one, and click on the join waitlist button of the new data removal feature of the service.
Little is known about the functionality of the service at this point. Two questions are answered by Mozilla.
Why remove your personal information?
When your personal information is online, you might be an easier target for identity theft, fraud, or even cyberstalking. Advertisers, companies, and hackers can quickly figure out a lot of information about you, like your name, home address, family information, or even social security numbers and passwords.
How do we remove it?
We are creating a privacy service to monitor websites for your personal information and remove it from sites that put you and your loved ones at risk. It’s not available yet, but click below if you are interested in finding out more.
Many questions are left unanswered right now, including:
- The definition of personal information, what does it include? Are we speaking about textual information only, e.g. name, address and social security numbers, or also media, e.g. leaked photos?
- The scope of the service. Is Mozilla monitoring the entire Internet for leaks, or it the data removal service limited to certain major sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, at least initially?
- How are removals handled? Is this an automated process, or, more likely in my opinion, do users need to give Mozilla's service permission to request the removal of data for each source individually?
Closing Words
Firefox Monitor's new data removal service adds more value to the service. It is a good addition to the service, if Mozilla gets it right. It seems improbable that the organization is monitoring the entire Internet for personal information of its users, and it is unclear whether Mozilla is creating the service from scratch or partnering with an established data removal service instead. Will the new personal information feature be free of charge? Mozilla is running several paid services already, e.g. Mozilla VPN or Pocket, and it is possible that the data removal service won't be free of charge, or will be limited.
All in all, it could give Firefox Monitor a boost, especially when compared to the other password leak solutions that are available on the Internet.
Now You: what is your take on this new data removal service? Would you use it?
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