How to protect your privacy online

How secure is your personal information on the Internet and the risk of theft or misuse? You are not alone. A Pew Research Center survey published in 2017 found that 49 percent of Americans said their personal information was less secure than it was five years ago, while 64 percent of Americans experienced a major breach of personal data. What is it.

Online privacy is a major issue. But when you visit your favorite social media, news, and entertainment sites, you can take steps to protect your financial and personal information.

Limit the personal information you share on social media

A great way to help protect your privacy online? Don't oversee on social media. Providing a lot of information on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can make it easier for cybercriminals to obtain identification information, allowing them to steal your identity or gain access to your financial information. For example, can an identity thief determine your high school mascot or your mother's first name by digging into your Facebook account? This information is sometimes used as a security question to change passwords in financial accounts.

Unfortunately, many people do not take this advice. In a 2018 study, the Identity Theft Resource Center found that approximately 52% of respondents shared personally identifiable information through social media sites.

And that's just the beginning of oversharing. The same study found that about 48% of respondents shared information about their children, while about 33% shared information about their location. A total of 42% of respondents shared information about their travel plans through social media.

To protect your online privacy, ignore the "About Me" fields in your social media profiles. You don't have to tell people what year or where you were born - which can be an easy target for identity theft. Also explore different privacy settings. You may be restricted to people who can restrict your publications to the people you personally invite.

Create strong passwords for your social media profiles too, so that others don't log in with your name. This means using at least 10 numbers, special characters, and a combination of upper and lower case letters. And never use personal, easy-to-guess information - such as your date of birth or pet name - as a password.

Browse in hidden or private
If you do not want your computer to save your browsing history, temporary Internet files, or cookies, surf your web in private mode.

Web browsers today offer their own version of this form of privacy protection. In Chrome, this is called an invisibility mode. Firefox names its configuration Private Browsing, and Internet Explorer uses the name In Private Browsing for its privacy features. When you turn on these modes, others will not be able to track your browsing history from your computer.

But these private methods are not completely private. When you search in hidden or private mode, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can still see your browsing activity. If you are searching on a company's computer, your employer can too. Websites you visit can also track you.

So, yes, hidden browsing has some advantages. But online is far from the only tool available to help maintain your privacy. Anonymous search engines and virtual private networks can enhance your online privacy.