Online Privacy – What Does it Really Mean and How Do We Protect It?
Privacy is something we all possess a natural right to. But what exactly is its meaning, and how can it be protected?
Online privacy can be complex and challenging if you’re unfamiliar with its intricacies, but taking a few simple steps will protect your digital health and ensure its continued wellbeing.
Protecting your identity
No matter if you’re an individual, small business owner, or large corporation; online privacy should always be top of mind. Identity theft, phishing and other cyber threats threaten both security and personal data.
Good news is there are simple measures you can take to protect both your identity and privacy on the Internet. These include understanding your online privacy settings, protecting devices from hackers or threats, and avoiding common scams.
Use passwords that are complex and hard to guess; for example, by mixing numbers, letters and symbols into each one. And ensure they change regularly!
Never use the same password across multiple accounts – fraudsters could easily gain access to them! McAfee provides a password manager to help protect all of your credentials across devices.
Limit the information you post on social media to protect your identity, such as photos or updates about your location or messages – as they all leave behind digital footprints that others can access.
Protecting your data
It’s essential that anyone using the Internet learn how to safeguard their data, from online forms you fill out to signing up for accounts or using apps like Google services or storing documents or images in cloud storage services.
Your personal information can be an invaluable asset, often being leveraged for targeted advertising or other forms of promotion. But ultimately you are in charge of it and can direct how it is used.
Furthermore, numerous international and national data protection laws exist that help safeguard your privacy when browsing the Internet, including the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC), Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA).
As well as understanding how your data is being used, there are also some straightforward steps you can take to help secure it. For instance, make sure that software and operating systems are regularly updated so as to take advantage of any newly discovered vulnerabilities or bugs.
Protecting your privacy
Since every day brings news of data breaches, cybersecurity threats, or friends’ experiences with identity theft, online privacy has never been more essential. Unfortunately, though, due to lack of laws in many countries protecting this area of personal life online or when using mobile applications.
One of the best things you can do to safeguard your private information is limiting what data companies collect about you and instructing them how best to use that information. Doing this will prevent it from falling into unwanted hands and will reduce potential consequences from privacy breaches or data theft.
An additional way to protect your privacy is installing a security solution that can monitor your digital footprint and inform you of any breaches in personal data or privacy threats, like Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection can. Such alerts could warn when personal information has been leaked through breaches or stolen through fraudulent methods like phishing attacks and theft.
Protecting your freedom
Internet has profoundly transformed our lives, while at the same time opening the floodgates to unscrupulous governments and companies. However, in an environment of hotwired routers, repurposed home networks and questionable online providers you need more than an old school firewall to protect yourself and maintain privacy and reputation – this is why using a VPN is such an invaluable way of protecting both. With top-of-the-line security products from our top providers no one can see what you are up to and we also specialize in keeping emails and web activity confidential so you can get on with living your life without worry or concern!