Data collection and tracking has become more widespread with each passing year. Companies, advertisers and even malicious actors all treat your personal data as a hot commodity and are eager to track every click, search, or post that you make online.
Unfortunately a lot of people don’t realize this, and even more don’t know how exposed they are – let alone what can be done about it. That is something that we’re going to address, right here and now.
The Reality of Your Online Exposure
Make no mistake, even at this very moment there are countless entities out there tracking, analyzing, and recording your every move. They look at your browsing habits, location data, purchase history, and even minutiae such as how much time you spent hovering over an ad.
Tools such as VPN providers may help to stymy some of the ways that third parties track your actions – but they are limited in terms of what they can do. Most are unable to protect you from the many different ways you can be tracked such as cookies, web beacons, tracking pixels, and fingerprinting. In fact, some harmless-looking apps on your phone may be collecting a lot more data than you think without you ever knowing about it.
Once collected, the data is used to build detailed profiles about your preferences and behavior patterns. Typically these profiles are used for targeted advertising or to optimize marketing campaigns – but sometimes they can be put to use for less savory purposes. At times the data may even be sold to other parties without your permission, or exposed in a data breach that spreads it far and wide.
To put it simply, you are probably a lot more exposed than you think you are. A quiz you took to identify which Marvel character you resembled could have collected your name, email, location, and some of your preferences. A game you installed on your phone may have collected data on your contact list.
The full extent of your exposure is hard to know, but what is certain is that if you don’t do something to take back control it will only get worse.
Risks of Overexposure
Now you may be thinking – what’s the big deal if some data is exposed and being collected? It is understandable if you feel that way as a lot of the time it used in ways that are relatively harmless, or annoying at most. However that isn’t always the case, and the impact of being overexposed can be quite bad.
Here are a few of the more common risks of overexposure:
- Manipulative targeted ads
While this may seem harmless, the hyper-specific profiles that advertisers create about you can be used to influence your decision in ways that you may not even realize.
- Identity theft
Malicious actors can steal your identity by piecing together personal details such as your name, address, birthdate, or even your mother’s maiden name, and names of your pets. They can then drain your accounts, or open fraudulent accounts in your name.
- Doxxing and harassment
If you aren’t careful, publicly available information can be used to harass or threaten you. In some cases bad actors may even publicize it further, or use it to SWAT you by filing false reports that force the police to raid your home.
Starting to see why it can be a very big deal if too much of your data is exposed? That’s why it’s important you act in advance to take back control before your data is misused.
What Can You Do About It?
While it is impossible to be fully private and anonymous online, the good news is that there’s a lot that you can do to limit your exposure. Here’s a few simple steps that will go a long way to limit the amount of data that is out there:
- Audit your digital presence by Googling yourself to see what is out there and using tools like Have I Been Pwned to check for exposed emails and passwords. Delete any unused social media accounts, and tighten the privacy settings on the ones that remain.
- Strengthen your passwords by using a password manager or some other means to generate strong and unique passwords. Make it a point to enable 2-factor authentication whenever possible – especially for banking and email accounts.
- Focus on privacy when browsing by using browsers like Firefox or Brave that block trackers, as well as search engines like DuckDuckGo that don’t track your queries. Using a VPN provider to mask your IP address is also a good idea.
- Refuse cookie pop-ups whenever they appear by opting out of any non-essential tracking so your exposure is kept to a minimum.
- Check app permissions before downloading them, and disable any permissions on the apps you’ve installed that seem unnecessary. Don’t let apps pile up, and uninstall any that you aren’t using.
- Be aware of phishing attempts and exercise caution when dealing with suspicious emails, messages, or links that ask for personal information of any kind. Try to learn more about how to identify fake emails so you can spot them early.
- Install updates regularly especially any security patches or hotfixes. Each patch may fix vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.
If you take all these steps, you will significantly improve your online privacy and reduce the amount of data that is exposed.
What’s Next?
Safeguarding your privacy isn’t something you can take action to fix and forget about later. If you want to see results, you need to play the long game and stay informed as well as be skeptical when dealing with websites, apps, and other platforms.
All in all, although your privacy may appear to be under siege – that does not mean you’re helpless to fight against it. As you can see there are ways for you to reduce your exposure and keep any personal and important data safe. If you haven’t already started, why not do so right now and take the first simple action to begin protecting yourself.
Also read: How Veterans Can Protect Their Online Privacy and Financial Data
