How to Take Back Control of Your Data This Data Privacy Week

From social media to online shopping, our lives and the digital world become increasingly intertwined daily. While the digital world has afforded us a new level of convenience and access to information, consumers must remember the best practices for protecting their data and ensuring it is being used correctly.

By 2020, it was estimated that 1.7 MB of data was generated by every individual worldwide every second. This includes data about an individual’s activities, behaviors, and interests. Data comes in many forms: personal data, like social security and driver’s license numbers, and physical data, like health data. With all of this digital activity and data flying around, it is easy for individuals to feel like they have lost control of their data.

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned with data privacy, with 86% percent of individuals saying they care about their data privacy.  That said, even the savviest digital users can have trouble managing their data.

Here are a few steps to help you better manage your personal information and make informed decisions about your data and its use.

Understand the privacy/convenience tradeoff

Many accounts ask for access to personal information, such as your geographic location, contacts list, and photo album, before you use their services. This personal information is of tremendous value to businesses and allows some to offer their services at little to no cost.

Make informed decisions about whether or not to share your data with certain businesses by considering the amount of personal information they are asking for and weighing it against the benefits you may receive in return. Be thoughtful about who gets that information and wary of apps or services that require access to information irrelevant to their services. Delete unused apps on your internet-connected devices and keep all apps secure by performing updates.

Manage your privacy

Once you have decided to use an app or set up a new account, check the privacy and security settings on web services and apps and set them to your comfort level for information sharing. Each device, application, or browser you use will have different features to limit how and with whom you share information. That said, managing so many different settings can be challenging, and it isn't easy to stay on top. However, here are a few important ones to focus on first:

• Geolocation Data: Many apps will ask you to share your location data to provide more relevant results. Ensure that you are only sharing this data with apps you trust and that these apps use your data responsibly.

• Contacts Data: Email apps and video conferencing apps virtually all allow individuals to sync their existing contracts with their services automatically. Therefore, you must share this data only with trusted sources, as contact data is yours and that of your friends and family.

• Camera and Photo Data: Social apps universally ask for access to an individual’s photo library and related camera data -- which contains troves of private information. Ensure only the most trusted sources can access this information and double-check the app's settings to filter which photo files apps can access.

You can find more information for free through great resources like the National Cybersecurity Alliance’s Manage Your Privacy Settings page.

Protect your data

Data privacy and data security go hand in hand. Fortunately, there are numerous easy-to-implement steps that everyday individuals can take to shore up their data and general cybersecurity:

• Long, Unique Passwords: Thanks to automation, once a bad actor has compromised one password, they can quickly bounce it around other sites to gain access to different accounts. Having long, strong, and unique passwords for each account immediately thwarts these “easy hacking” efforts and makes it much harder for hackers to crack a password in the first place.

• Password Managers: Password managers have redefined cybersecurity by providing a consolidated and secure hub for individuals to store their information. They can even generate unique, secure passwords and store them automatically.

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA has been found to block 99.9 percent of automated attacks when enabled and can ensure your data is protected, even in a data breach. The great news is that many organizations are increasingly offering it to individuals as an opt-in- if not mandating it completely- so enabling is easier than ever.

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76% percent of individuals said it’s too hard to understand what’s happening and how their information is used. However, by keeping these few quick tips in mind, individuals can keep much better tabs on their data and create a safer digital environment for themselves to live in.

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✔FTC: Protecting Your Child’s Privacy Online;

✔FTC: Protecting Kids Online;

✔Consumer Reports: How to Protect Children’s Online Privacy;