Protecting Your Personal Privacy

First Published Date : September 30, 2010 ADawnJournal.com

In today’s world, it can be very difficult to protect your privacy. Companies and scam artists are all trying to get your personal information for their own purposes. With companies, it is to market to you and sell you things you may or may not need. With scam artists, it is to gain your money without you even realizing you are losing it. For this reason, you want to ensure that you protect your personal privacy both in the online and offline world. I am not just talking about identity theft here, but your personal details that can be bought, sold and given away without you even knowing about it.

In Canada, two federal privacy laws are in place to protect you and your personal information. These laws give you the right to find out who is using your personal information, how it is being collected, how it is being used and where the information is being stored. In addition, you can know who is handling your personal information.

If you want to protect your personal information in the offline world, do the following:

· When you get a sales agreement, it is very important that you read the fine print. Sales agreement often feature fine print that states you agree to add your name to a marketing list. If you see this, make sure you either check the box that says “NO”, or that you write a note on the document saying you do not agree to this clause. In addition, you can just refuse to sign the contract until that point is removed.

· When you buy something at a store, the store staff may ask for your name, address, phone number, and email for their records. Ask what is happening to your personal information and if you do not get a satisfactory answer, do not give your personal information.

· Charities will often share donor lists between each other, so ask that you do not want your personal information shared.

· Do not sign up for free draws, raffles, or contests if you do not want your personal information being used by someone else. The personal information you put on entry forms is often used to then send you sales offers, or given away to other companies.

· Remove y our name from any mailing lists that it may be on. If you are in Canada, you can do this by writing a letter to Canadian Marketing Association, 1 Concorde Gate, Suite 607, Don Mills, ON, M3C 3N6.

· When you call a company, dial *67 before you dial the number because this will protect your phone number from being used by the company or filed into your account as a way to contact you.

· When you are subscribing to magazines, see if the magazine mentions that they will be using your information and giving it to other companies so they can use your information for some reason you may not know about. You typically will have the option to opt out of this and you just need to contact the magazine to do so.

Now, offline it is usually pretty easy to protect your personal information but online it can be very difficult and you have to think about where your information may be used or taken with every website you visit.

· This means do not allow your contact information and personal information to be left at websites after you visit them. You should go into your browser’s menu and setup under your privacy options a fake name and do not enter in your e-mail address.

· Tracking cookies are a good way for a company or scam artist to know where you are going and information about you. Cookies can contain your User IDs and passwords. Cookies can also be used to mine your data by tracking your motions through a website, the time you spend in the website and more. Make sure you turn off cookies in your browser.

· Have an e-mail address that you never enter to websites and only give to people you know. When you are posting to newsgroups, websites, mailing lists and more, use an e-mail address that will serve as a buffer between the spam and your clean e-mail.

· Before you add someone on Facebook, make sure you block your personal information. Don’t just give personal details about yourself and your family to strangers and people you just met online. It may seem safe but the person you are talking to on the other end of the net may not be who you think they are. Even companies will hire people to interact with future customers to get their personal information, so be very aggressive in not allowing anyone to get your information.

· Your internet use and e-mail may be monitored at your work and that information may be used by the company to actually market to you, even though you are already working for the company. In addition, you may also lose your job if the things you surf or your personal information does not fit well with the company policies.

· If you get spam, do not reply to it and say that you know it is spam. When you reply to spam, it just shows spammers that the e-mail they sent their spam to is a real e-mail. If you reply to them, you will just get much more spam in the coming days.

· Some websites will offer prizes and rewards in exchange for your personal information or other personal details. Do not give your personal information on these sites because often if the prize seems too good to be true, then it most likely is.

· Always enable encryption on your browser so that you can ensure you do not have anyone trying to access your information. Usually you just have to click the box for encryption in your browser to make sure your surfing is encrypted.

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