Social and professional connection online is nearly inevitable these days, but how do we maintain privacy and curate the online experience that works best for us? Here are 10 tips to protect your digital privacy.
- Keep your personal accounts on private: If you are sharing information that you don’t want everyone, including future employers and employees to know, keep the account on private.
- View your accounts from a public view option and see if you approve: Many social media apps let you see what your account looks like from a public view. Do a check up every once in a while and clean up the feed if necessary. You have the right to control what people see of you!
- Use disposable phone numbers when needed: A lot of information is attached to your phone number, and changing your number can be difficult. Services such as Google Voice provide numbers associated with an app, not your actual phone, that you can use if a phone number of yours needs to be publicly available.
- Be mindful of using your full name on social media: Similarly to phone numbers, a lot of information is attached to your full name. A quick internet search can be very revealing if all of your socials are attached to your full name.
- Regularly check your location sharing settings, including on pictures: You have control over who sees where you are and where your pictures are taken! Many apps have live location sharing features, including Instagram and SnapChat, that can put you at risk if the wrong people see your location. Double check your location sharing settings every time you update your phone or the app updates to ensure that only the people you want to know where you are know where you are.
- Don’t post where you’re at if you’re out until you have left: Just like apps can share locations, so can pictures we post. Don’t post where you are while you are there. Wait until you get home!
- Be mindful of the background: A picture in front of your dorm room could potentially give away where you live. A picture in a parking lot can give away what you drive and what your license plate number is. It’s sad and scary that we have to think of these things, but the truth is, being careful and cautious is always the better option. Be mindful of what information is shown in the background of your photos.
- Don’t use obvious passwords: You’ve heard this one before but it bears repeating; don’t use obvious passwords! If everyone knows your pet’s name, that is probably not a good password. If it can be easily guessed, your privacy is at risk
- Know how much information is attached to your phone number and other public information so that you can take measures to mitigate risk: Search your name, phone number, and address on the internet and see what comes up. Many data mining sites can be contacted so you can ask them to take your information down, but some things are just simply public. Know what is out there so that you can take steps to mitigate any risk there might be.
- Use that block button!: Control your online experience! If someone is posting or saying things that you don’t want to be around, take screenshots for documentation if needed and report if it’s reportable, and then block! This can help protect your peace and curate your digital environment into a healthier space.
