STAYING SAFE ONLINE IN 4 STEPS
HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR DIGITAL PRIVACY
October is designated as the Cyber Security Awareness month. With the #BeCyberSmart tagline from the Stay Safe Online organization, there are various collaborations between government and private industry to raise awareness about digital security and empower everyone to protect their personal data from digital forms of crime.
In 2022, the four focus areas are:
- Enabling multi-factor authentication
- Using strong passwords and a password manager
- Updating software
- Recognizing and reporting phishing
All these measures are meant to safeguard your online presence in a world where over 63% (~5 billion) of the population has internet access with 4.7 billion being on social media.
Data being the new oil, that every organization is trying to mine from you, it is important to have a control over how much of you is out there. The data collected about you is used for activities such as targeted advertisement which sometimes can be overwhelming. According to a report by Cisco on Building Consumer Confidence Through Transparency and Control, over 33% of users have terminated relationships with companies such as social media platforms over data privacy concerns.
Having this background, there are a few easy steps one can use to secure their digital footprint. While this may not guarantee your security 100%, it’ll protect you from unnecessary sharing of your information.
1. Secure your email
Your email is probably the most important gateway to your online presence. From registration on social media platforms to organizations websites such e-commerce sites, you have probably already left your email somewhere. In most cases, this is usually the same account you use to receive personal mails, linking your bank account and even business operations for some. Registering on this account will come with advertising messages on your email daily.
Control Measure:
(a) Use multiple email accounts for various activities. You can have one for receiving official mail, another for use on e-commerce platforms and another for subscription based registration.
(b) Use temporal emails. These are temporal email that can be used and destroyed easily. These are very convenient for website that require to register in order to obtain some information. Very useful when access is only needed once or for a limited period of time.
Such platforms include: Temp-Mail, EmailonDeck, TempMailo
(c) Use encrypted email clients. Platforms such as Proton Mail will offer you end-to-end encryption which helps ensure nobody, not even Proton, can decrypt, access, or share any of your personal information. Also, your information can’t be shared with advertisers.
2. Use ad-blockers. This probably the easiest yet most effective way to protect yourself against website collecting information about you or serving you ads. Data is the new oil in the digital world. Almost every activity you perform online is being monitored. The information is used to better your online experience (or so they claim). You can have some control on who collects your information by using simple ad-blockers to protect you against such. There are a number of options one can use to achieve this. However, be careful on what option you choose, some maybe malicious and end up collecting more information from you.
3. Turn of browser history and cookies on your browser
Some people may argue this as being unnecessary, but if you can so much about you privacy it worth implementing. Cookies and browser history are typically how the internet knows where you were the last time you visited, what you did and where you like visiting the most among other items. If you are average internet user, tools such as the TorBrowser which provide you with more anonymity, may not be your cup of tea. However you can implement some easy mechanism to secure yourself. Turning of browser history and cookies is built on any browser. You just need to enable it on your browser settings and you are good to go. Also you can use search engines such as DuckDuckGo which do not track your online activities.
4. Use VPN/Tor browser
This step is geared more toward people who are tech-savvy. While there are commercial VPN clients one can use, it is important to understand how your data is processed before on-boarding onto these platforms. The TorBrowser is arguably the most secure platform when trying to hide your internet presence. If you are using your browser for basic stuff such as sending mails, social media or visiting websites, Tor may not be your daily use tool. However, if you intend to carry out an in-dept internet search without wanting to be discovered, then this should be your go to tool.
CONCLUSION
Digital privacy begins with you taking the first step. While there are laws on data protection and privacy, you are the first line of defense. Take the deliberate decision to protect yourself.
