There’s probably a good deal of personal information about you available publicly on the Internet. Here’s how to minimize your online exposure.
If you’re on social media, you almost certainly have a friend or two who would benefit from joining Oversharers Anonymous. Of course, there’s nothing anonymous about oversharing. Posting long-winded opinions on Facebook is oversharing, but when it comes to protecting your data and privacy, even giving out your phone number to online retailers may be overdoing it. Be aware of what your data is saying about you online, and remember that prevention–let’s call it undersharing–is the best medicine.
Here are three ways your data gets around online, and how to slow it down.
Your Phone Number
Unfortunately, your phone number is on the Internet, and it’s tied to more personal information than you might think. Using a data broker site that compiles publicly available information, anyone can look up a phone number and find out a variety of personal data points on the number’s owner, including:
- Full name
- Full address
- Social media accounts
- Email addresses
- Images and any other Google search results
How to Keep Your Phone Number Safe
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Your Photos
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Indeed, because unless you’re careful about your iPhone and Android settings, every photo you snap is accompanied by a trove of metadata. Metadata attached to a digital image may include information about the photo’s time, location, the kind of phone, and even the name of the photographer. Anyone in the know–again, hackers and advertisers–can use this metadata to find out where and when the photo was taken.
“There are some situations where you need to be careful” about sharing photos online, says Bobby Richter of Consumer Reports. “If you’re sharing images with people you don’t know or trust, you should be wary of whether or not you’re revealing sensitive information, like location data.”
The good news is that most social media sites, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Craigslist, and others, remove metadata when you upload a photo. Of course, there’s little doubt they keep it on file. “You can almost certainly be assured they are not throwing it away, given that they’re basically big data vacuum cleaners,” Hany Farid, a computer scientist at University of California, Berkeley, told Wired.
The immediate danger posed by metadata, though, occurs when people share photos directly with others they meet online. It’s essential to know that–unless the photo has been scrubbed of its metadata–when you email a photo to a stranger, you’re also telling them when and where that photo was taken. That means if someone online asks you for a selfie, they may really be asking for your location. Don’t send it to them.
Your Social Media Activity
A new day, a new opportunity to share information online. NextDoor, neighborhood forums, Craigslist, Facebook, YouTube–we have no shortage of ways to be social. It’s essential to remember two things before posting anything online: first, once on the Internet, that data lives forever outside of your control. Second, assume the forum is not as private as you think. It’s never a good idea to share information such as disability, any details related to income, and whether or not you live alone in a forum like NextDoor. There’s simply no way to know who is reading, and such information can serve criminals well.
Even if your social media security is set to the most secure setting, it’s better to err on the side of caution. No one knows all their Facebook friends well, after all, and data breaches happen. The safest way to share online is to undershare.
Additional Sources:
https://www.techguide.com.au/news/internet-news/how-long-does-information-stay-on-the-internet/
https://its.uky.edu/news/how-oversharing-on-social-media-could-put-your-personal-information-risk
https://sitesuserguide.stanford.edu/build-and-design/media-library/images/image-metadata
https://www.techguide.com.au/news/internet-news/how-long-does-information-stay-on-the-internet/
