You cannot avoid the internet: whether for work or for leisure, most of us log in online every single day. Unfortunately, this huge online audience also poses a huge opportunity for criminals and other unscrupulous individuals keen to access your data and personal information. That’s why it is so important to protect your data online and ensure that you only share your personal information when it is absolutely necessary.
But how can you best protect your data? Don’t worry; we’ve got everything you need to know. Here are some of the most effective ways in which you can protect your data online.
Remove Your Information from Large Data Brokers
It is likely that every time you place an online order or sign up for a retailer’s email newsletter, that business will hold key information about you. Some of these businesses will even share that information with other organizations, such as data brokers, making it difficult to be sure what information is held about you and by whom.
While it is technically possible to approach every data broker and ask them to remove your information from their databases independently, this is both time-consuming and labor-intensive. A data removal service like Incogni will contact the data brokers and ask them to remove their customers’ data on their behalf.
Think Carefully Before Clicking on ‘Accept’
Most people rarely read what they agree to when they click “accept” on cookies and privacy possible. Therefore, think twice before acting. If a website asks if you’re happy for them to contact you, share or store information, tick the little box that says “no” or “reject all”. Better yet, don’t give them your information in the first place. You should only share your data online if it’s absolutely necessary. This is the very best way to protect your data and your digital information.
Protect Your Passwords
Finally, it’s important that you secure all of your online accounts with robust passwords so that if data breaches do occur, your personal data will be safe. Huge companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, and Equifax have all fallen victim to data breaches and password leaks in recent years, and these pose a huge risk to their customers and clients.
You can protect yourself from this by using a password manager to generate and remember different, complex passwords for every account. You should also enable a two-step authentication system on all of your accounts wherever possible.
Many security analysts consider this to be the single most important thing you can do to protect your account security today, as it is much more difficult for unscrupulous individuals to circumnavigate a two-step authentication system, making your accounts considerably more protected.
