Internet privacy is becoming a growing concern these days. Companies track your behavior across websites to serve you with relevant advertisements. Governments monitor every move you make to predict your behavior.
According to Javelin 2018 report 14.4 million people were victims of identity fraud. Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous people on the Internet who are looking to take advantage of you. Thus, learning what kinds of information these individuals are looking for and how they use your to information is important. Learn how you can protect yourself, by guarding your information online.
Remove Your Data From Collection Sites
There are data broker companies like Spokeo, Whitepages, Internetlius and many more, that collect your data information. According to Wikipedia these “Brokers then sell the profiles to other organizations that use them mainly to target advertising and marketing towards specific groups, to verify a person’s identity including for purposes of fraud detection, and to sell to individuals and organizations so they can research people for various reasons.“
You can delete yourself by going through each site. It’s free, but does take a while. I did it for myself, husband and youngest son. Here’s what I did.
You can also hire companies like DeleteMe to do this for you.
Pay Bill Online
Stolen mail is one of the easiest way for thieves to get your personal information. Protect yourself by:
- Have your post office hold your mail when you’re out of town.
- Sign up for Informed Delivery through the USPS, which gives you a preview of your mail so you can tell if anything is missing
- Opt in for online bill payment. Online bill pay service is offered by many banks and credit union.
Create Google Alerts for Your Name
Google is the most common tool people will use to look for information about you on the internet. While you may not be able to monitor who’s searching for you, you can monitor when new information is published with your name on the internet.
To create an alert for when anything gets published mentioning your name, visit Google Alerts.
Use a Private Email Server
Gmail and Yahoo read your emails in order to send you ads. Instead, consider using Fast Mail or ProtonMail, who won’t read your emails. If you don’t want to give up your current email address, use Abine’s Blur Masked Email for your online accounts and shopping. Using masked emails will prevent third parties from monitoring your activity. Blur automatically blocks tracking scripts, targeting images, and other tracking technologies.
Shred Your Mail
Shred all your mail, including junk mail.
Stop Pre-approved Credit Card Offers
Are you getting those pre-approved credit card offers in your mail? Fortunately, you have the right to opt out of credit card prescreening. Visit www.optoutprescreen.com or call 1-888-5OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) to remove your name from prescreened lists for a certain number of years or indefinitely. By opting out, you’re telling the credit bureaus that you don’t want your information sold to credit card companies.
Opt Out Of Junk Mail
Getting your name off the mail listing is key to stopping unwanted advertising mail being delivered to your home.
Go to: directmail.com to opt out of junk mail.
Freeze Your Credit
One of the best things you can do to protect yourself from some identity theft is to put a credit freeze on your credit report. You’ll need to put a freeze on all three major credit reporting agencies.
By freezing your credit report this will prevent identity thieves from accessing your credit reports in order to open new accounts, access credit, or making any major purchases in your name and its free.
A credit freeze allows you to control access to your credit reports through a PIN or password. Even if someone has your Social Security number, they could not use it to establish new lines of credit or make purchases on credit in your name.
Unfreezing Your Credit
There may be times when you’ll need to unfreeze your credit, for an auto loan, a mortgage are a few examples. Don’t worry this is easy to do by using the PIN you were assigned by each of the major credit bureaus when you froze your credit report. Then, after your new credit has been established, you can freeze your credit report again using the same PIN.
Worth noting: When you unfreeze your credit report, you can indicate that you want your credit report to be frozen again after a specific period of time.
You Have The Right To Privacy
Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations in 1966 also protects privacy: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
The Principles on Personal Data Protection and Privacy for the United Nations System were declared on 11 October 2018
You have the right to privacy, know your rights. If you’re not happy with a site’s privacy policy or how they treat your personal information, speak up! Organizations like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) can help you to understand what your privacy rights are. Spread the word on why privacy matters. Don’t let anyone, any company or any website take that from you.
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