Breaking up is hard to do. The internet has made it harder.
With couples today regularly sharing access to one another’s email accounts, streaming services, social media platforms, online photo albums, and more, the risk of a bad breakup isn’t just heartache. Equipped with unfettered access into sensitive, shared online accounts, a vindictive ex could track someone who is actively using services like DoorDash, Uber, or Airbnb, spy on someone through a Ring doorbell, raise the temperature on a Nest thermostat, or shout obscenities through a baby monitor.
As every relationship is different, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to safely disentangling your digital life from your ex, but there are a few rules that can make the process easier.
And, because this can be a lot of work, here are a few things that can help you along the way:
- A password manager that will help you create and store unique passwords for each online account.
- The use of multifactor/two-factor authentication on every sensitive account that allows it.
- A friend who can go through these exercises side-by-side with you.
Further down is a more comprehensive checklist of many considerations you can take in separating your digital life from your ex, but, here’s a quick, handy guide:
It’s important to remember that this work won’t be completed in a day. That’s entirely okay. Instead of trying to accomplish everything in one weekend, prioritize the most sensitive work—cutting off access to email accounts, online banking, shared photo albums, social media, and any services or apps that can reveal your location.
As Malwarebytes recently discovered in research conducted this year, 56% of people in committed relationships in the United States agreed that they “would like to see more guidance on how to handle shared logins, accounts, and apps in a relationship or during a breakup,” and 45% agreed that they “would have a hard time knowing where to begin if I no longer wanted to share location-based apps or services with my partner or in the event of a breakup.”
We hope this digital breakup checklist, which is not comprehensive, can provide some of that guidance.
Here is the Modern Love Digital Breakup Checklist.
1. Review shared devices
- Log out of personal accounts on shared devices, including laptops, tablets, e-readers, smartphones, smart TVs, and Internet of Things devices. This includes:
- Email, social media, and online banking accounts on shared tablets, computers, and smartphones.
- Email, social media, and online banking accounts on the shared devices of children/the entire family.
- Entertainment accounts (Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, Spotify, etc.) on smart TVs and streaming devices such as Roku, Google Chromecast, Apple TV, etc.
- Remove your ex’s accounts from any device you share that you will maintain ownership of after the breakup. Here’s are guides on how to remove someone from:
2. Review shared accounts
- For shared accounts where you and your ex had one set of login credentials, log out of those shared accounts on your own device.
- If you want to continue using those services, create a new personal account with a unique password.
3. Review personal accounts
- Before resetting passwords, check the recovery settings on your personal account to ensure that any attempts to reset your password will be sent to your personal email account and not to an email account owned by your ex.
- Before resetting passwords, consider using a password manager to help create, store, and remember unique passwords for each account.
- Reset and create unique passwords for sensitive accounts, including:
- Online banking and financial accounts (Chase, Wells Fargo, Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, Cash App, etc.)
- Online shopping accounts (Amazon, Etsy, Shein, Temu, etc.)
- Social media accounts (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc.)
- Shared cloud accounts for photos (Google Photos, iCloud)
- Shared cloud accounts for file storage (Dropbox, Box, etc.)
- Streaming entertainment accounts (Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.)
- Parental monitoring apps (Life360, Bark, Qustodio)
- Online forums and chat services (Reddit, Discord, etc.)
- Reset and create unique passwords for accounts that can expose your location to users who are logged into the same account, including:
- Food and grocery delivery apps (Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates, etc.)
- Ride-sharing apps (Uber, Lyft, etc.)Vacation rental apps (Airbnb, Vrbo, etc.)
- Health and fitness tracking apps (FitBit, Strava, etc.)
- Connected apps for modern cars with anti-theft location tracking
- Enable multifactor authentication on sensitive accounts and accounts that can expose your location, when provided as an option.
4. Review/remove your signed-in devices
- Check your security settings in your online accounts to review what devices are currently logged into the same account. If you see a device that does not belong to you, force that device to be logged out.
- If you take this step after successfully resetting your password, those devices will be required to use the new password (which only you should know).
- These settings can often be found in “security” or “privacy and security” tabs in most apps.
5. Review the location settings of your device
- Your device provides a way to comprehensively turn off all location services that apps rely on to function. With this feature turned off, location-based apps (such as Uber, Uber Eats, Airbnb, Yelp, Maps, etc.) will still function, but you will need to input your address and location manually each time you use the service.
6. Review “Find My/Find My Device” settings
- Modern devices come pre-installed with anti-theft services called “Find My” on iPhones and “Find My Device” on Android phones. These are the same services that many couples use to track one another’s location, and turning these services off will shut off access that other people (including exes, friends, and family) have to your location.
7. Review the location settings of individual apps
- If you want to keep location sharing on for convenience, you can review individual apps on your device and select how you would like your location to be accessed by those apps.
- iPhones allow you to choose one of several options for how frequently apps will access and use your location: Never, Ask Next Time Or When I Share, While Using the App, or Always. You can review location sharing settings on iPhone here.
- Android phones allow you to choose one of several options for how frequently apps will access and use your location: Allowed all the time, Allowed only while in use, and Not allowed.
- You can review location sharing settings on Android here.
8. Maintain your ongoing security and privacy
- If you find it safe and necessary, block your ex on certain social media platforms, messaging apps, etc.
- Review the privacy settings of social media apps to ensure that your posts are not inadvertently shared with an ex.
- Consider whether your ex could see your posts because you have mutual friends who may reveal your posts to your ex.
- Review automatic cloud backups for photos you take with your smartphone.
- If your ex compromises your iCloud or Google Photos account—and your photos are automatically backed up to those accounts—they could retrieve sensitive photos that you want to keep private.
- When entering a new relationship, have a conversation about consensually and safely sharing your location (or choosing not to).
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