Would you want someone following you all day, writing down every shop you enter and every street you walk down, even if they promised not to break into your house? And what if they weren’t just watching, but getting paid for every note they took?
Online, that’s the reality.
How we got here
Twenty years ago, privacy was the default. If you visited a website, you just… visited it. Anonymously, nobody tracked you unless you opted in.
Today it’s reversed:
1. Tracking everywhere: You’ll find Facebook’s Pixel on a large share of popular websites, and Google Analytics on an even bigger slice of the web. Data brokers collect, package, and sell information about you – often knowing more about your habits than you know yourself.
2. Cookies “agree or leave”: Cookie banners are everywhere because regulations require transparency and consent for many types of cookies. But many sites lean on “legitimate interest” – which, in practice, means your data is still tracked by default unless you manually opt out, an option often buried deep in the settings.
3. Your smartphone is a tracking device: Location history logs everywhere you go. Apps often request far more permissions than necessary for their core function and share data across devices. Cross-device tracking means your phone, laptop, and tablet build one unified profile of you.
4. ISPs log everything: Many countries require internet providers to store logs for years. Your ISP can see which domains you visit (via DNS requests) – not the full URLs or content thanks to HTTPS, but enough to build a detailed map of your online habits.
5. “Free” means you’re the product: Google uses your search history and activity for ad targeting. Facebook sells advertisers access to target you based on everything they know about you. TikTok knows your interests better than your closest friends. If you’re not paying for the service, you’re not the customer – you’re the inventory.
6. Anonymity is suspicious: Most sites now require registration. Phone verification is standard. Sign in with Google/Facebook’ is convenient, sure – but it means those companies know every site you log into, and often much more if those sites also use their tracking pixels.
Why privacy matters
Privacy isn’t about hiding. It’s not about being paranoid or doing something illegal. It’s about not wanting your every move logged, analysed and monetised by people you’ve never met.
Ten years ago, most people worked in offices on corporate networks. Your company’s traffic stayed inside a perimeter your IT team controlled: their routers, their firewalls, their policies. If someone was watching, at least you knew it was your security team.
Today you’re working from cafés in Bali, co-working spaces in Lisbon, hotel rooms in Dubai. Every time you connect to a local mobile network abroad, you’re routing your work through infrastructure you know nothing about. The visited operator can see your traffic. Local regulations may require them to log it. And you have no idea who else might be watching – or selling that information.
Security vs Privacy
Modern internet has gotten better at security – HTTPS encrypts most connections, protecting your passwords and private messages from interception. It’s not universal: some sites still don’t use encryption, and public WiFi networks remain notoriously insecure. If you’re using MTX Connect, your connection is secure by default. Your data travels through our private network infrastructure – no matter which country you’re in, your traffic is protected from interception and external interference.
But even with this security, the visited network operator still sees:
- Which domains you visit (your bank, your company’s tools, social media, news sites);
- When you connect and for how long;
- The volume of data you’re transferring;
- Your device’s real IP address and location.
They can’t read the content, but they see everywhere you go. That’s the difference between security (protecting the data itself) and privacy (protecting your route).
Think of it like the armored limousine: the vehicle is bulletproof and your data inside is safe. But everyone can still see which roads the limo is taking. That’s fine for most journeys. But sometimes, you want the limo to go underground – completely invisible.
So how do you get privacy?
The most common answer: VPN. Route your traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a server somewhere else, hiding your destination from the local network. VPNs work, but they come with trade-offs – you’re trusting a third party with your data, installing extra software, and dealing with connection instability on mobile networks.
There’s another approach: network-level privacy through dedicated Access Point Names (APNs). Instead of routing traffic through third-party servers after it leaves your device, the encrypted tunnel is built into the mobile network infrastructure itself. This is how enterprises protect their remote workers – corporate employees don’t use consumer VPNs, they connect through dedicated APNs.
That’s what MTX Connect’s Enhanced Security does. The same network-level protection we provide to corporate clients is available to every MTX Club member. Your device switches to MTX Connect’s dedicated APN, routing traffic through an encrypted tunnel to Luxembourg. No apps, no third parties, no manual setup. The visited operator sees only an encrypted connection to MTX Connect – no destination, no content.
What Enhanced Security doesn’t do
A few things to be clear about:
Enhanced Security protects your connection, not your device. If your laptop is already compromised, no network-level protection will help. Use common sense and antivirus software.
It only works on mobile data through your MTX Connect SIM/eSIM – not on WiFi. When you switch to WiFi, you’re back to trusting that network.
It costs €50/year. That’s not nothing, but it’s simpler and often cheaper than VPN subscriptions with recurring monthly fees.
And it’s not an anonymizer for illegal activities. Enhanced Security is for normal people who work, travel, log into their bank and company tools on the road, and this is for legitimate privacy – protecting your work traffic, your personal data, your right not to be logged by every network you pass through.
Privacy isn’t the default – it’s a choice
We can’t bring back 2005, when privacy was a default. But we still can give you control over who watches your route.
Enhanced Security is about autonomy. The right to work from anywhere, connect from anywhere, without wondering who’s logging your traffic or what they’re doing with it.
Turn on Enhanced Security in your MTX Connect account.
Don’t have one yet? Start with €10 Easy Start – you’ll get your first eSIM and instant access.
Questions? Ask our human, quick, responsive, and the nicest tech support in the world. They’ll get you sorted in no time.
Travel safe. Stay private. 💙
Jan Verny, MTX Connect Chronicler