Privacy Awareness Week: Limit Your Digital Exposure
At Hetherington Group, we not only pride ourselves on the work that we do to help people regain their digital privacy, but we also educating people on things they can do going forward to limit their digital exposure. In honor of digital privacy week, we wanted to share some of our knowledge and insight with you!
Let’s tackle the reality - none of us are ever going to fully disappear from the Internet. We are full steam ahead to a fully digital world and that train shows no signs of slowing down. With that said however, there are plenty of things, you, as an individual, can do to limit just how much information about you is available online.
1. Just Say No - Stop giving your email address and phone number out just because someone asked. It’s okay to say no. This is a common occurrence where society doesn’t stop and think if this is necessary, we just are conditioned to give this information out. We are guilty of just blurting this information out to a cashier or filling out any random form, online or in person, that requests it. In a physical setting, you have no idea who is listening around you. All too often people just provide their PII out in the open with no tangible way of knowing who anyone is around you.
2. Operational Security – If you read that above and thought “I HAVE to give out my cell phone and email address”, don’t give your actual cell phone and email address. Keep your personal cell phone for your friends and family. Try using a VoIP service such as Google Voice to get an alternative number that you can give out instead. Make an email account that’s sole purpose is to be given out in this fashion. Do not connect either of these to your social media, back accounts, etc.
If you make a Gmail account for this purpose, you can also track where your data ends up. You have unlimited email addresses with Gmail thanks to the + function. When you give out this email address add “+(store name)@ gmail.com and watch where that email address shows up.
As an example, if you made [email protected], and you are using the email on a form, rewards, etc., you can enter [email protected] when providing it to target. Don’t worry, all emails will actually be delivered to the [email protected] inbox. If you see that email in a data breach or in a third party broker, you know exactly where it came from.
3. Opt Out! – A credit freeze is great for a multitude of reason, and we suggest that everyone does this, however that alone does not prevent marketing and screening for credit and insurance offer. To do that, you can use www.optoutprescreen.com. This service is the ONLY service authorized by Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion. You can hit all four at once with this request.
4. Virtual Credit Cards – We loves these at Hg, and use https://www.privacy.com/ as our service of choice when our investigations force us to make a transaction on what might be a shady website. These cards can be locked to a single merchant, or single use cards that are dead after the first use. Virtual cards are a great way to keep your actual credit card information from getting into the wrong hands or being included in the inevitable breach that we all are a part of at some point in our lives. In addition, you don’t need to enter your actual name or billing address, which provides even more data privacy on top of the security benefits.
5. Societal Footprint – We commonly see PII being the talk of the town when it comes to digital privacy. That is a very important piece, however your involvement in your local community is a regular blind spot. Volunteer at the local animal shelter? Coach a local sports team? Have children involved in local clubs, sports, organizations? The answer is commonly yes to one or more of these questions.
Your and your family’s involvement is a blind spot for most. These organizations have their own marketing documents, social media profiles, and public presence that you have no say in. It’s important to regularly check these things for information about, or photographs of, you and your family. If the organization has the option to opt out of being included in any public posting, exercise that option.
These five ways are just the beginning of how you can strength your privacy online. If you want to learn more about opting out of data collection to ensure your information stays private, download our free Opt-Out guide to start the process of securing your online presence.
