Intentional Privacy

International Data Privacy Day—called Data Protection Day in Europe—is celebrated in the US, Canada, and 27 European countries every year on January 28. It started on January 28, 1981, when the members of the Council of Europe signed the Convention for Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. In the US, Data Privacy Day is sponsored by StaySafeOnline.

Ever thought, why should I protect my information? Listen to Glenn Greenwald’s Ted Talk on Why Privacy Matters. Not only will it help you understand, but it might galvanize you to action!

Some tips on how to better protect your data include:

• Use “Do Not Track” on your browser. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) explains how to turn on “Do Not Track” in some common browsers here. The EFF is a great resource about how to better protect your personal information.
• Think before you share personal information, whether through email, on social media sites, or over the phone. Once you share information, you have no control over what happens to it. Help your children learn what is okay for them to share.
• Check the privacy settings on social media sites you use on a regular basis. Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, … privacy policies change, which may impact your privacy settings.
• Protect your computer by keeping your operating system and applications updated. On Windows, Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector helps me keep my applications current.
• Create strong, unique passwords for every important site. Have a problem remembering all those passwords? Me too! Use a password manager like KeePass or LastPass. If you want to protect your information more, use two-factor authentication for email and social media site log-ins.
  • Help setting up Google’s Two-Factor Authentication
  • Help setting up Microsoft’s Two-Factor Authentication
• Back up your important data regularly—pictures, documents, music, videos, or whatever is important to you—at least once a week. If you use a physical device, disconnect it between backups. To ensure that your information is safe, use two physical backup devices, alternate them, and keep one someplace safe like a safe deposit box. If you use a cloud backup, use a physical back up as well. Online services can go offline temporarily or even go out of business, while devices break, become corrupted, lost, stolen, or infected by malware. Periodically try to recover documents to ensure that your backups are functional.

Other tips

• Mozilla’s Get Smart on Privacy
• FTC’s Consumer Information
• Check out DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t track you. Want to see how much tracking happens in your browser? Check out the Firefox Lightbeam addin.
• Try WhiteHat Security Lab’s Aviator browser. Note: if you use two-factor authentication, you will need to enter a code every time you open up a site that uses it.