mychoice

Your personal information is valuable – you should treat it the same way you would any valuable item.

Everyday, you use your personal information to access or use new technologies that make it easier for us to communicate with each other and to access information and entertainment. Many of these technologies “talk” to each other – meaning that they interact with each other and can send information back and forth. (Think of social networking sites like Facebook, and cell phones that now have the ability to access the Internet and can also send text, e-mail and digital messages from the Internet or another cell phone.)

The thing is, while most people are aware of the benefits of these new technologies, not everyone is aware of how they can threaten personal privacy. It is important to learn how these things impact your privacy, as well as the simple steps you can take to safeguard it. This way you can make choices about the personal information that you are allowing others to have.

What kind of information is being collected about me when I’m online?

First of all, it’s important to know that nothing on the Internet is truly private. All you have to do is visit a web site and, already, information about you is being collected – information like the songs or plug-ins you’ve downloaded, your computer’s technical configurations, addresses of previous sites you’ve visited. Even your e-mail address! Owners of web sites can view all of these things – and more. If you combine this with information that you’ve posted about yourself on social networking sites, or information you’ve submitted to buy things, enter contests, download songs or register for web sites, you’ll see that people can find out an awful lot about you if they are so inclined.

How is this information being collected?

In many different ways.

You give it voluntarily: Whether you’re playing games on the Internet, or just surfing around, it’s easy to forget that others are out there looking for your personal information. Remember this every time you:

• Fill out a registration form to join an online community
• Create a personal profile to meet other kids with similar interests
• Take an online personality test or I.Q. quiz
• Fill out an online marketing survey that promises points for participating
• Fill out an entry form for an online contest
• Fill out a registration form for downloading programs, games or plug-ins
• Send an e-card
• Subscribe to a newsletter
• Take advantage of “free stuff” being offered – such as audio clips, discount coupons from online stores or promotional screen-savers

IP Addresses and Cookies: Many web sites collect personal information – and some are more obvious about it then others. Some web sites ask you for personal information before granting access – you may be asked for your full name, age, address, telephone number, and even about your personal preferences. Others collect information in more subtle ways, such as making a record of your Internet Protocol (IP) address (an address that is unique to your computer and can be traced back to you) and of the web pages you visit. They do this by placing “cookies” – small files of text that can collect and store information – on the hard drive of the computer you are using. The cookies collect and store information like the IP address of your computer; how many times you visit the site; your preferences, such as preferred language; your user name and password; items in your “shopping cart”; web sites you’ve visited; any information, such as your name; and any unique alphanumeric character string that can be linked to your personal information.

Electronic Mail: Did you know that sending an e-mail is just like sending a postcard because anyone, from your grandmother to your boss, can intercept or read it? Another thing about e-mail is that it’s hard to delete. Each e-mail leaves a digital “print” on the senders’ and receivers’ hard drives and you have no control over this – so even after you’ve hit the “delete” key and emptied your trash, the hard drive “prints” are still accessible and could be tracked down.

Spam: You know those annoying junk e-mails that pop up, unwanted, in your inbox all the time? That is digital spam and you get it because organizations collect, use and disclose your e-mail address without your consent. This is a growing privacy concern since these e-mails can be addressed to you personally, can be tailored to your personal interests and can seem to “know” you. If you get spam like this it means the spammers have already done research about you and have figured out what kinds of messages you would be interested in. Or you might get more generic spam, created simply to find out if your e-mail address is valid. Once you open this kind of e-mail, the spammers know the address is in use and can sell this information, along with your profile, to marketers without your consent.

Bots: These come to you in e-mails and plant information into your computer and send information back to the sender. For instance, they can plant cookies and pop-ups onto your computer, and send information back, such as whether or not your address is valid and how long the e-mail was open for.

Phishing: This is an attempt to commit fraud on the Internet, often by someone sending you an e-mail asking for your credit card numbers or passwords. For example, you might get an e-mail from an organization saying that you won the lottery and they need your banking information to deposit the money. The e-mail will ask you to forward them an account number or other personal information that you would never normally give out.

Viruses/worms: This scenario is one everyone wants to avoid: you open an e-mail and it introduces a virus, worm or Trojan into your computer system. These messages may contain attachments that embed malicious code into your computer to corrupt files or hijack your home page or Internet connection. This code can send itself to all the computers in your address book and attack them too. Through these viruses, remote surveillance tools can be installed that monitor and transmit your online behaviour or allow hackers to take control from another computer outside of your home.

How is this information being used?

Once information about you has been collected, it can be used, shared – and possibly abused – in countless different ways. It can be used to tailor electronic ads specifically to your habits and interests – and then organizations can use the information they’ve collected to get those ads to you.

It’s really important to remember that employers can access social networking sites to find out more information about the kind of person you are. This is all pretty new, and it’s clear that most companies don’t yet have policies about this sort of thing. Right now, the question of whether those party pictures you posted on your favourite site will affect whether you get hired seems to be a case-by-case matter. You might think this is a violation of your privacy, but just think about it for a minute: you are posting pictures on the Internet for all the world to see – you can’t really control who sees them so you need to think about what you post.

Friends of friends of friends can access the same sites to find out what you are doing everyday. In fact, there are so many possibilities that it can be difficult to determine what happens to the personal information that is circulating around the Internet. We see media stories everyday about hackers gaining access to supposedly secure web sites and obtaining credit card numbers and other personal information – these stories suggest that few, if any, web sites are completely secure. It can be difficult to predict how a dishonest or disgruntled insider, with legitimate access to your information, could use that information.

What can I do about it?

Fortunately, there is a lot you can do about it! Here are some tips on how you can protect your personal information:

• Make sure that you are dealing with a real company before you give your e-mail address. If you don’t know the company, phone and check it out; anything promising instant money is usually a scam.
• Do not open attachments from unknown senders.
• Always read web site privacy policies or statements before submitting personal information, particularly sensitive financial or medical information. If you don’t fully understand part of the policy, ask for clarification. Never consent to something you don’t understand.
• Install and use anti-spam, firewall, anti-virus and other privacy and security enhancing software, and keep it up to date.
• Download and install critical security patches from your operating system.
• Refuse some or all of the cookies that web sites offer you. Reduce the amount of information you provide and don’t provide information that is not required. Check the opt-out provision that limits the use of the information you provide.
• On social networking sites, provide enough information for your friends to identify you – but not so much that someone could use the information to steal your identity. There’s no reason to include your entire background, from education to work history.
• Consider making your profile private so people you don’t know can’t access information and images from it.
• Don’t use the same password for social networking sites that you do for online accounts that have banking and credit card information.
• Use e-mail encryption for particularly sensitive messages.
• Check for updates on privacy policies on the sites you use.
• Use a disposable e-mail address instead of your usual one when giving contact information to unknown parties on the Internet.
• Always insist on secure, encrypted Web connections to conduct any sensitive transactions, such as making Internet purchases or doing banking online.
• Read all of your e-mail messages offline. If possible, read them in text-only format.
• Do not respond to spam in any way. Delete these messages without opening them.
• When forwarding messages, delete the previous recipients’ e-mail addresses.
• Never assume that anything you post online is completely private. Trust your instincts. Remember – ultimately, you are responsible for the information, photos and videos that you post.
• Regularly change your password for accessing your e-mail accounts.
• Be ultra-careful with your Social Insurance Number.
• Choose difficult passwords.