The 6 Must-Do To Protect Your Data Privacy In 2017

Data privacy has never been a higher cause of worry or a field of technological innovation because they amount of information available online has increased manifolds. Year 2016 has been a year of many data breaches and high-profile information leaks. Year 2017 as well continues to witness international cyber crimes and cyber attacks in government websites by Ransomwares. Keeping that in mind, this is a reminder for everyone to give their data a privacy check up and update their security. Here is a list of steps to complete to protect your data –

1. First things first: New passwords

Changing passwords is basic. This must be done routinely i.e. monthly. In case of suspicion of a breach, passwords must be changed immediately. To start your private data security, start with changing your password for your social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram, your email accounts, online banking accounts, and official business accounts in different client portals.

Password strength should also be given enough consideration. The best way to come up with a password is using password generators, although the password generated is difficult to memorize but it will keep you safe. Even then, given the number of accounts people manage these days and also have a few social media accounts for personal purposes, it’s not easy to remember all the passwords. And it’s also not advisable to have the same password for all accounts. In this situation, the next pointer is useful.

2. Password Managers are useful tools

Password manager is a software tool that keeps all your login details from different websites in one location on the computer. software like KeePass, 1Password, Sticky Password etc work in the same way. They are all secure and popular. This can save you the trouble of remembering the different usernames chosen for different website. It will also save a lot of trouble and time spent on resetting passwords.

3. Use a VPN wherever possible

In 2017, VPN is no longer an advanced technology enjoyed by the internet savvy. It has become a requirement. It increases your private data security by manifolds. Additionally, VPN is also used to accessing Geo-restricted portals and websites on the internet. However, this much is obvious that not all VPN networks offer the same amount of security and connectivity. In this case, the highest recommended VPN is LimeVPN. It offers easy installation on all devices and easy access to geo-restricted content on websites like YouTube and BBC iPlayer.

4. Update all social media privacy setting

We live in an age where Facebook alone has 1.9 billion active users monthly. This data is for Facebook alone. Then there is Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and so much more. Inclusively the numbers are quite a sight. So developing a good privacy policy and incorporating it has been equally tedious. And the task is never complete. So the forth health check of your data privacy is to make sure that your social media privacy settings are updated. Be sure to read any new changes in the policy and choose settings that best suit you. If a website introduces any new features, then it is inevitable that additional privacy settings have been added. For example, as Facebook added the Stories feature of displaying your everyday images and activities for 24-hours, they also added privacy features of who could see it and who could reply to it. Users should be aware of these changes.

While using social media, a VPN like Lime VPN could be a highly useful resource in securing your accounts.

5. Important: Always use an encrypted messaging service

This is probably the most important Public Service Announcement. Facebook Messenger is not encrypted. Facebook literally retains the rights to go through your communication in order to help their advertisers. It is not uncommon for users to talk about a certain thing over messenger and then subsequently find advertisements relating to the same on their Facebook feed. People might think that since it is a private messaging service it might be secure, but it is not.

One such secure, encrypted messaging service is WhatsAppp. However, WhatsApp too was recently bought by Facebook, however the communication within it still remains encrypted. Telegram and Signal are also encrypted messaging services.

6. Make your search more secure

Searching on the search engines is another outlet for corporations to seek out your data. The search engine has a big impact on the privacy of your data. Google has been the leading search engine for decades now. However, Google is known to save all of the users search history. This data is used to advertise for you in a more customized way. So Google is not a data privacy-friendly search engine.  In this case other search engines could be used like Yahoo, Bing or AOL. However these are not much better at privacy protection either. Here you can use search engines like Duckduckgo, Startpage, Ixquick, Blekko, etc they do not track or store your search history.

These are some steps to ensure that you are safe from corporations using your data to fill up their surveys and profit off of you, or worse the government finding access to your personal information. Always be sure to use a VPN while browsing social media and to use password generator while creating passwords on various websites. You can learn about the various monthly packages of VPN at www.limevpn.com

Rachael Chapman

A Complete gamer and a Tech Geek. Brings out all her thoughts and love in writing blogs on IOT, software, technology etc