Many nonprofit campaigners were not surprised to learn that the government monitors average citizens' private emails and their presence on social networks. This has been widely suspected for years. It just wasn’t confirmed until recently how the government has partnered with Google, Facebook, and phone companies like Verizon to make it easier to monitor messages and conversations. This got me thinking about how much nonprofit campaigners are taking the time to protect their online privacy, especially the campaigners who work on hot button issues like gun control, reproductive rights, climate change, etc. Here’s a list of four tips to get you started in protecting your online privacy. While it won’t prevent the NSA from reading your emails or private social networking updates, these tips will help you better protect your privacy from the general public.
Four Tips to Protect your Online Privacy
1. Don’t Publish Sensitive Information Online
This may sound obvious, but it’s important to remember that nothing is ever private on the Internet – no matter what “security settings” you have in place. If you publish something on Facebook, even in a secret group, or send an email to someone, it can easily be distributed online. For example, someone in your network who you have granted permission to see your content can easily take a screenshot of something that you did not intend for public eyes. Earlier this week it was reported that Facebook had a bug that affected 6 million users and exposed their phone numbers and email addresses. Yikes! So if you truly don’t want something shared on the Internet, don’t put it online.
2. Use Social Network Privacy Settings
Many popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have privacy settings that you can use to allow only certain people, like family or friends, to view your updates. One of the more confusing privacy settings is on Facebook. It even confused Randi Zuckerberg, who in addition to being the sister of the founder of Facebook, also used to work at the company previously. If Facebook’s privacy policies can confuse someone like Randi, then they're surely confusing to the general public.
On Facebook it’s a multi step process to restrict the general public from seeing your content, such as your basic info including contact info, status updates, photos, videos, etc. You can get a overview of Facebook’s privacy settings here.
3. Manage your Passwords Right
Make sure that your passwords are secure. They should be a combination of letters that are uppercase and lowercase, numbers, and symbols. The password should not be an actual word. You should also use different passwords on different social networks and email accounts. Change passwords quarterly at the very least.
4. Identity Authentication
It’s inevitable that one day you will leave your iPhone, iPad, or laptop either at a client’s office, a bar, CVS, the train, etc. With so much personal and sensitive information on these devices, that you probably don’t want anyone accessing, having identity authentication on these devices can be helpful. One of the most secure identity authentications for these devices is through your fingerprint. It’s relatively secure because it’s much more difficult to fake someone’s fingerprint than it is to guess their password. In fact, Apple may be rolling out this sort of technology in their new iPhone this fall.
What’s your best advice for protecting online privacy?
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