Why Do You Need to Own Your Data?

Last week’s global Facebook outage was the worst that we have experienced in over 13 years. We often take for granted how these social media platforms enable us to live our everyday lives, from doing work to connecting with our loved ones to storing our personal data. As much as we like to think that the biggest tech companies and social media platforms are infallible, we should take pause to evaluate how much we actually depend on these platforms to store our treasured memories

Five hours without Facebook, and Instagram, served as a great reminder of how important it is to OWN your data. As I shared in last week's update, Apple recently reinforced this with their latest updates to Terms and Conditions of iCloud (Article IV Section D). This new verbiage reads that iCloud cannot guarantee its backup integrity and tells users it is their responsibility to backup their data elsewhere (i.e. on another computer or hard drive) to ensure they don’t lose their data. If users don’t agree to Apple’s new terms and conditions, they can’t activate iCloud to backup their photos. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, they literally give you NO choice!

So why would a tech behemoth like Apple absolve their responsibility on backup integrity? We can only surmise that many users have experienced losing their data enough times to make it an issue that Apple is unable or unwilling to resolve. Some of it can be attributed to user error, when customers make the unfortunate mistake of accidentally deleting their content. On the other hand, it is also possible that there are some flaws or weaknesses in iCloud, be it robustness of backup software or hardware, or simply having too many access/delete options with unclear side effects. Regardless, Apple has come out clean with their pronouncement. We need to give them credit for that and take heed of their warning.

Among the big tech companies, Apple has been advocating the most for their users’ privacy. If you are an Apple fan, protecting your privacy is probably important to you. When selecting your next backup solution, we believe you should consider the following questions:

1. Do I own the data, or is my data in someone’s cloud?
2. Will it backup any data I have, not just photos and videos even though they are more than 90% of all my data?
3. Can I backup from multiple devices with different OSes (Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android)?
4. Can I easily access my data from anywhere, from any of my commonly used devices?
5. Can I share my content to anyone of my choosing, including those outside my household, and still protect the rest of my data?
6. Will it help organize my data, using additional smarts like AI?
7. Will it be expandable to cover my needs as my data volume grows?

Amber X is an easy answer to all the questions above and provides you total control over your data. Not to mention that it is super easy to set up, unlike legacy solutions on the market. If you felt any panic during the social media outage last Monday, and want to ensure that your memories will remain backed up safely in the case of any other emergency or if you take heed of Apple’s iCloud warning and disclaimer, Amber X is the easiest way to Bring Your Data Home.