How to GDPR yourself
We provide a list of the top 10 things you can do today, in the spirit of the new General Data Protection Regulation, to protect your personal data - even if you live outside the European Union.
The European Union law on data protection General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is enforceable as of today. It governs the way businesses carry out data-gathering and data-processing.
First adopted on April 14, 2016, the GDPR extends the digital rights of EU citizens and residents and aims to give users more control over their personal data. This legislation applies to non-EU based companies who handle any EU citizen’s data and non-EU residents whose data is used by an EU company.
Three key elements of this law are: the right to access your personal data and information, the right to request the erasure of this data, and the requirement that data harvesters get specific and unambiguous consent from users before collecting their data. Businesses that don’t comply with GDPR policies will face steep penalties.
It’s possible that these new privacy laws – especially if they work well – will change the Internet. While we surely hope that’s the case, we put together a list of the top 10 things you can do today, in the spirit of this new legislation, to “GDPR” yourself and further protect your personal data.
VPNs enhance your online privacy and anonymity by allowing you to access a secure private network while sharing data across a public network. They also use encryption protocols, so even if someone was able to grab your transmitted data, they’d have a hard time using it because it would be encrypted.
Anti-tracking extensions identify third-party trackers (scripts that monitor what you do while visiting specific websites) and allow you to choose whether to block those trackers or not. When looking at the top 500 websites in the US, almost 90% of these pages contain trackers – there’s no denying the prevalence of tracking scripts! Trackers not only monitor your online behavior to build a profile about you, they also slow down page loads and pose a significant privacy risk.
Once you stop trackers from accessing your personal data, you’re well on your way to better online privacy, but your browsing can still be bogged down by ads that are often unwanted and obtrusive. Beyond the annoyance factor, some advertising is downright dangerous. “Malvertising” is where a malicious advertiser will buy ad space on a legitimate website and then place ads on this site that are infected with viruses, spyware, or malware. There are lots of good ad blockers out there today. If you’re looking for a tool that blocks both ads and trackers, Ghostery is a great option.
Don’t use the same password for multiple sites, particularly sites that contain sensitive information like credit card, health, or financial data. You can also create stronger passwords with a password manager like LastPass or Bitwarden. Password managers help you generate strong unique passwords for the all the different sites you have a login for.
Don’t open emails that seem suspicious or that aren’t from someone you know and trust. If you receive an email from someone you do know that seems a bit off, ask your contact if they sent the message to ensure that their email account hasn’t been hacked. And definitely don’t click on any links that might be in the body of these suspicious emails. There are also browsers that protect you against phishing. For example, Cliqz offers a browser that has an anti-phishing feature that detects deceptive websites trying to access your passwords or personal data.
When setting up your accounts or updating your settings after the account has been created, you should always consider choosing the settings that limit third party access as far as possible. Whether it’s your Facebook settings your adjusting or the settings for your operating system, you should look and see the ways you can restrict access to your data.
Secure your Wi-Fi connection with WPA2 encryption and make sure your connection is encrypted when you surf the web, do any online shopping, and especially before you provide any sensitive data. You can recognize a secure connection by the https:// in front of the web address and by the green lock icon in the address bar of your browser. HTTPS Everywhere, activated in the Cliqz Browser by default, automatically ensures that encrypted connections to websites are established. For email and messaging services, choose an end-to-end encrypted service. Finally, when you’re using public, unencrypted Wi-Fi, make sure you’ve got a VPN running so that any data you transmit will be encrypted.
You know all those times your phone or computer has reminded you to update your software, and you said to yourself that you’d do it later? Well, try and do those software updates as soon as you find out about them. These updates often contain critical patches for your device or operating system that are released specifically to protect you from attackers who may have already identified the vulnerability that the patches are designed to fix.
There are plenty of credit monitoring tools out there, plus everyone is entitled to one free credit report from each of the credit reporting bureaus once a year. Why should you do this? Keeping an eye on your credit is recommended to make sure that no one is opening accounts under your name or doing any other fraudulent activity that would put your identity at risk.
