To protect means to cover from or shield from exposure, injury, damage, or destruction. It is simply to guard something and keep it safe from loss. Everyone has a right to digital privacy and it is important for you to protect this right and keep information safe and private. In this topic, we discuss ways in which you can protect that right to digital privacy.
The Deeper Definition of Digital Privacy
Digital privacy refers to the protection of an individual’s information that is used or created while using the internet on a computer or personal device; it could also be described as the protection of the information of private citizens who use digital media. When people talk of digital privacy, they are referring to it in terms of its relation to internet usage. When we cover our faces when someone is taking a picture, we are protecting our privacy, the more digital we become the more privacy we require.
Sometimes we restrict certain people from seeing what we post on our social media profiles. We use passwords to prevent others from accessing our bank accounts. We close our laptops abruptly when someone snoops around trying to see what we are posting or looking at online. And as the Facebook- Cambridge Analytica scandal and Equifax-gate proved, our attempts to secure the precious data we exchange are never enough.
Despite digital privacy, it is a popular and often controversial issue-defining what digital privacy really is can prevent resolution. Digital privacy Centers on the fact that using digital mediums to conduct affairs whether personal or professional can leave digital footprints. For example, many internet users don’t realize that information about them, and their internet usage habits are constantly being logged and stored.
Ways You Can Protect Online Privacy
Having in mind how important protecting online privacy is, it is necessary for you to know how you can keep your information safe online. Some of the ways you can use to protect online privacy are discussed below.
- Limit to personal information you share on social media
Install anti-virus software, firewall software, and anti-spyware software and keep up-to-date by installing updates regularly. Don’t also open file attachments especially if you don’t know the person the message is from; just delete it. It is also important for you to avoid clicking on links if you don’t know where the message is from and so even for these links, just delete it.
- Always browse in private mode
This prevents cookies from being stored on your computer.it also stops targeted advertising based on the sites you have visited in the past. With no cookies to track, marketing companies will stand no chance of turning your online activities against you. private browsing has benefits if you use a single computer to access the same website with different accounts.
- Use a different search engine
Search engines affect our privacy through the types of data collected. Most search engines can and do collect personal information about their users according to their own privacy policies. This user data could be anything from location information to cookies, Ip address, search engine histories, click-through history, and online fingerprints.
Using different search engines exploits user information and search context to learn in which a sense of query refers.
- Use a virtual private network
Vpn software protects your information by masking your device`s Ip address, encrypting your data, and routing it through secure networks to servers in faraway states or even countries. In doing so it hides your online identity, ensuring that you are able to browse the internet securely and anonymously. It also helps avoid censorship when traveling abroad.
- Be careful when you click
Click on the wrong link or type the wrong keystroke and you could end up losing a lot of money, personal data or be the victim of the malware. In 2017, cybercriminals successfully stole millions of dollars using google ads that sent unsuspecting users who searched for blockchain products to phishing sites.
It is therefore important to watch what you click and be more careful.
- Secure your mobile devices too
Mobile security is a measure one takes to protect against a wide range of threats that seek to violate your privacy and seek to take any other information stored on your phone. These attacks on your mobile device are to take your private information such as bank information, login information, and other data. You can do this by using phone locks, two-factor verification, using anti-virus software, or enabling android’s “find my phone” feature.
- Use quality anti-virus software
Once it is in your computer or laptop, malware can steal your data, encrypt it so you can access it, or even erase it completely. For this reason, it’s important that you always use anti-virus software and keep it up to date to protect your data and devices.
Importance of Your Privacy on Internet
It is very important to protect your privacy on the internet so you can keep your family safe from social media data breaches. This Safeguards privacy and identity from theft it also protects the privacy of your business from cybercriminals. Privacy gives us the power to choose our thoughts and feelings and choose who we share them with. Privacy protects the information we do not want to be shared with the public such as personal health or personal finances. It also helps protect our physical safety if our real-time location data is important.
Canada’s digital privacy act came into effect on June 18, 2015. It is the Canadian government’s attempt to reform PIPEDA and is an act to amend the personal information protection and electronic documents act to make a consequential amendment to another act.
It also specifies the elements of valid consent for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information.
Understanding the Digital Privacy Laws
There is no single law regulating online privacy. Instead, a patchwork of federal and state laws applies. Some key federal laws affecting online privacy include The Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC) (1914) which regulates unfair or deceptive commercial practices.
Digital privacy laws deal with legal rights and restrictions governing technology usage. To prevent any kind of online crime, no matter how serious, students as digital citizens need to know the law and how it applies totem in particular.
Digital privacy laws have been passed in 3 states; California, Colorado, and Virginia- have enacted comprehensive consumer data privacy laws. The three laws have several provisions in common, such as the right to access and delete personal information and opt-out of the sale of personal information, among others. The debate on digital privacy raes on and will continue as long as technology advances. internet users will always stand by tier rit to privacy and also their right to publicly accessible information. questions about privacy laws continue to arise as lawmakers attempt to strike a balance between protecting their citizen’s privacy and keeping them informed. However, on personal information, where one is responsible for their own information, it is important to ensure they use the methods discussed above to safeguard the privacy of their information and keep themselves and their families safe.