Six ways to protect your online privacy

Data breaches and informationsharing scandals have done much to reinforce the view that you are not in control of your personal online information.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal — in which the British consulting firm was revealed to have obtained the data of millions of Facebook users — people are wondering how much of their information is accessible by others and what can be done to protect it.

Although the only foolproof way to exercise total privacy online is to delete all of your accounts and never use the internet, here are some things you can do right now to take control of your online identity.

1.

Familiarize yourself with privacy settings. For phones, make sure your apps only have access to the info they need to work. Checking these options out is the best place to start securing your information.

2.

“If you want to make sure your personal information is safe, perhaps the most important habit is to be aware of how your information is being used and by whom,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says on its website.

To that effect, most online companies will allow you to see, and sometimes delete, the data they keep on you. Find them, and delete them.

3.

Use secure passwords: “If a bad actor gets ahold of a password that you’ve reused across multiple services, they can gain access to many of your accounts,” says the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international non-profit that promotes internet civil liberty. It suggests using a different, strong password for all of your online identities.

4.

Delete unnecessary apps, extensions and services: Cambridge Analytica got its Facebook user data through a personality quiz app on the social network. Check out what apps you’ve given access to on Facebook and purge ones you don’t recognize or use anymore.

5.

Ditch Google: The data-harvesting power you give Google each time you use one of its services is staggering. Instead of using Google search, try DuckDuckGo, an alternative search engine that doesn’t track you or retain your data. Instead of browsing with Chrome, try the privacy-focused Firefox.

6.

Try an encrypted messenger: It’s not too complicated to get started with encrypted communication. WhatsApp and Signal are two free services you can start using right away.