4 Cardinal Rules for Privacy and Data Protecting Online

November 24, 2023 By Nancy William No Comments 4 minutes

Considering that you leave your digital footprint online each time you visit the internet, keeping your personal information private should be a priority. Statistics indicate that 90% of American internet users agree that online privacy is important. Failure to safeguard your privacy online may result in identity theft or theft of your credit card information, which may cause you to lose control over your finances. This is why the 4 cardinal rules of privacy and data protection are crucial.

Cardinal Rules for Privacy and Data Protecting Online

Note – Cybercriminals can easily infiltrate your device and steal data every time you connect with vulnerable WiFi networks. Other infiltrations occur with weak passwords, clicking on random links, and more. For this reason, it’s always advised to connect with FastestVPN to encrypt your connection.

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4 Best Rules for Privacy and Data Protection

Protecting your digital privacy helps secure your personal information and business from cybercriminals. It limits the power others might have over you while keeping you safe from data breaches. Discussed below are four tips for protecting your privacy online.

1. Remove your personal information from data broker websites

Data broker sites are a major threat to your personal security and privacy. These websites gather and sell significant amounts of personal data. The risks of data broker sites being utilized to access your personal information include:

Privacy invasion
Cyberattack vulnerability
Reputational damage
Unwanted solicitations

While an opt-out guide can help erase your personal information from data broker websites, the process is time-consuming. This is where an internet privacy service like DeleteMe can come in handy. When choosing an internet privacy solution, consider reading reviews, including Delete Me review, to find a reliable service that will help ensure all your details are erased from data broker sites.

2. Leverage strong, unique passwords for privacy and data protection

Weak, recycled passwords take cybercriminals no time to guess. Strong, unique passwords are essential and a great protection against hackers and identity theft. Be smart when selecting passwords and avoid similar passwords across various sites or devices. To create strong passwords, consider:

Trying a minimum of over 10 to 12 characters
Using hard-to-guess passwords
Leveraging varied character types, like uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols
Avoiding apparent character substitutes
Not including personal information

If you’re having difficulties creating strong passwords, a password generator can help. Keep your passwords in a safe password manager. Consider enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) to safeguard your privacy in case you share your passwords in a phishing scam.

3. Avoid oversharing personal information on social media

Oversharing personal information makes it easier for cybercriminals to discover intimate details about you by exposing sensitive data, which can jeopardize your online security and privacy. Social media oversharing includes posting:

Intimate information about yourself
Those you’re with regularly
Your relationships, family members, friendships
Enabling your geographic location on posts
To ensure you don’t share too much personal information on social media:
Be thoughtful/ careful about everything you post
Monitor those who follow you
Secure your social media accounts

The best way to safeguard your socials is by ensuring you don’t overshare personal data online.

4. Use a VPN (virtual private network)

A VPN conceals your IP address by allowing the network to redirect it via a uniquely configured remote server a VPN host runs, meaning the VPN server acts as your data source when surfing the internet using a VPN. This implies that the ISP (internet service provider) plus other third parties can’t see the sites you visit or the data you receive or send online. This helps add online privacy and data protection, even on the go.

A VPN connection camouflages your data traffic on the internet and secures it from external access. With this connection, cybercriminals and hackers cannot decipher your personal data. The best VPN solution should encrypt your IP address and protocols and use two-factor authentication.

Endnote

Neglecting your privacy online can be quite risky. However, implementing these tips for privacy and data protection is what’s required to secure your footprints online.