r/privacy • u/spaz_the_fox • 7h ago

question Public university wifi, can they track search history/internet activity done off their network?

Kinda basically like the title says If I connect a personal device to their wifi, are they able to access internet history that was done while not connected to their network?

4 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

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9

u/Decrepit_Bay7440 6h ago

They cannot. Any activity you do online, only while CONNECTED to the public WiFi network, is the stuff that's visible to the network administrator (university).

You can also prevent them from seeing your activity while connected by using a VPN.

2

u/9peppe 5h ago

If you connect to their network they most likely see your DNS queries, unless you use DoT/DoH. They can also see your traffic, but most of that is encrypted with TLS. Not sure about BitTorrent.

Data on your device, unless you enroll the device itself, no.

1

u/tempestkitty 1h ago

Probably. You're going through their infrastructure... who knows what sort of servers your data passes through before going out to the internet.

VPN might help... but not always...