Julianne Mercer, Negosentro.com | Gone are the days when everyday activities like shopping, travelling and chatting were an individual’s private sphere; as in the digital age our habits and choices are all being recorded somewhere, instead of being restricted to one’s own self.
With an increase in online purchases using credit cards, website visits and even phone calls and chats through email, we unknowingly place ourselves at a greater risk of privacy breach.
Data breaches are getting bigger and frequent, with 2016 alone recording a 40% increase in reported data breaches. Isn’t it significant enough to make online privacy a priority?
Big data collectors and internet companies are using their marketing capabilities, capital advantage and unrelenting goodwill to make a silent back door entry into our private lives. Telecommunication entities, we know, are playing freely with consumer data.
State agencies aren’t helping the cause either with their approval to sharing of consumer digital information. They view that service providers can’t essentially do without acquiring consumer data though use of search engines is more of an individual decision which potentially has alternatives.
Most of us don’t pay much heed to this fact and continue with our current behavior until this starts intervening in our day to day lives. For example, getting marketing calls and unwanted messages is the first step towards our information reaching public domain without our consent.
Surrounded by these threats all the time, there is an urgent need for us to limit our digital footprints as much as possible. Some of the ways to improve our online privacy include deployment of VPNs and data security applications.
Using private search engines like ‘myprivatesearch’ is also beneficial from privacy point of view. This ensures minimum vigilance at our side.
Take a look at this infographic to understand the current trends and the steps we can take to preserve our online privacy.
