What is digital privacy and what is it for on the Internet?
Digital privacy is, in short, the right that all Internet users have to keep the information on their devices secret. So far everything is clear but it is a more subjective concept than it seems, since although rules have been established to determine that one content or another should be private, these are not usually met for certain aspects.
The latter happens with our online consumption habits. For example, if you search for vacation spots on Google for a week in a row, you will notice that the Google Ads ads that appear on all the sites have to do with this theme. Now, how does the browser know which ads to show us? Well, they use a “plugin” called , which is like a kind of tracker.
These remain “stuck” to our browser and identify us, in this case as “potential customers of X niche”and the ads that we will see next will be very related to this sector, whether we have searched for hotels, plane tickets, Rome, consumables or whatever.
Is this illegal? Well, the answer is no, since all postcards that use cookies notify us, and we accept them without paying much attention. This is a fairly innocent example of how our privacy is violated on a daily basis.but continue reading and you will notice that it can be much worse.
How does privacy work on the Internet? main elements
Going back to what was said at the beginning, Internet regulatory bodies have established certain guidelines to guarantee the privacy of Internet users. These aspects are the basis of online data securityand it is important that you know them all so that you know what to expect in the future or when you see any of them:
Privacy policies
Privacy policies are a statement or document that every website or application on the Internet must communicate to its users, as well as any subsequent update that is made, leaving them with total freedom to decide whether to accept them or unsubscribe. They make clear textually how all the data handled or supplied by users will be used, processed and stored.
The problem does not lie essentially in them, In fact, they are a very valuable document for everyone who cares about their privacy to determine if it is worth giving up some rights to use a platform.. The real stumbling block is in the users, who 90% of the time completely ignore these policies and all their updates.
Notice of use of Cookies
Cookies, as we mentioned, are a file that is stored in the cache of your browser or computer, so that when it re-enters the platform, the user is shown the content that they usually see. These are basically used on all Internet sites, such as YouTube or Google itself. The notice of use of cookies is precisely an announcement in which a platform informs you that by entering its website and using it you are accepting all that are found on it.
SSL certificate
The SSL certificate is another of the most important aspects that you must know to know that a platform is protecting your data. It is a security protocol that is responsible for encrypting all data that passes through a website. For several years it has become a requirement demanded by European entities for any portal that requests the email of its Internet users or any other contact information to send a newsletter.
What are the main online privacy risks faced by users?
Digital privacy should be one of the main concerns of Internet users today, since this will help them avoid running into certain scenarios that will bring them very bad experiences.
Identity fraud
Phishing is a term used to define a type of computer attack in which a person impersonates another to perform certain actions without compromising their identity, or to defame the owner of the stolen identity. This has always been a very common global problem, even in the physical world, but since the birth of social networks, everything has worsened.
One person just needs to know your boyfriend and steal a dozen of your photos from any of your social media profiles to create a new account using your name and image. This simple fact makes it a very difficult attack to prevent. since even people in your circle of friends could do something like this.
Bullying
Bullying is another risk we are exposed to in the real world, but it has evolved for some time and almost 90% of the main forms of bullying take place through social networks and digital forums. In this sense, bullying can take various forms, the most common being:
- : One form of harassment consists of making fun of a person’s physical or psychological defects, even being considered racism and xenophobia if it is done against a person of a particular nationality or race.
- : This is a form of pedophilia that occurs through social networks. In this case, the harasser would be a person of legal age who harasses and harasses a minor with full sexual intentions. Although it could be confused with sexting, in this case the attacker does not sexually abuse anyone, but rather the victim who allows himself to be manipulated and ends up giving himself up sexually.
- gender violence: one of the most common forms of violence in which a person is verbally or physically violent towards their counterpart of the opposite sex.
These are just some of the forms of harassment that can be seen on the Internet, but in general terms we can, in one way or another, appreciate them all, since the harasser only has to have contact with his victim to harass and attack at will.
sexting
Sexting is a practice that consists of sending content of a sexual nature through a chat. While these expressions are completely voluntary, the information they contain can be used later to harass a persongoing so far as to extort and blackmail her in exchange for not sharing her photos, videos or chats on a public social network, or having them reach a relative.
manipulations
A person with enough information about us can easily create a speech convincing enough to manipulate us. This is common on social media where sexual predators are looking for weak-minded boys and girls to use as they please. and have them send you increasingly compromising information.
scams
Scams are the order of the day on the Internet and many times they do not even need to violate our privacy to carry them out. Nevertheless, Taking care of the security of our data will make it more difficult for them, for example, to use our credit card to make purchases without our authorization..
data theft
As you can imagine, none of this that we have mentioned would be possible if our data were not stolen first. This is the first step to start suffering everything else.
Privacy of our devices. What are the security problems of these?
One thing we need to understand about this topic is that everything starts on our devices, since they are the ones we use to enter the Internet, and it is in them that all the proven information that we keep is stored; from our most intimate photos, to our credit card details:
Operating systems
Operating systems can be our main enemies. One of the most used is Windows 10 from Microsoft, which is also one of the most powerful, but it has a factory setting that can cause problems for our privacy. This is in the case that we are talking about desktop computers, but on mobile phones we can also take risks.
Android, for example, has one of the most solid architectures, and in a way it can be considered 100% secure, but there are certain aspects that we must take care of. Applications like Google Maps leave a detailed record of all the places we visitNot to mention that the browsers for these devices are not as secure as they are on the desktop.
So the first thing you will have to do to solve this is install on your computers an operating system that is 100% reliable.
online browsers
Online browsers are your second enemy. These, if they are out of date, usually contain vulnerabilities that are easy for a malicious program to take advantage of. Also, in them we protect many of the passwords of the platforms that we use the most; from social networks and emails, to online games and payment processors.
IP addresses
The IP addresses They are one of the greatest proofs that the Internet is developed to spy on us 100%. These are a number that identifies a computer within a local, metropolitan or international network such as the network we use to navigate. This piece of information may seem harmless, but you will be surprised by the amount of information that a person can obtain from us with this innocent number..
To begin with, a computer’s IP address can be traced, and then geographically located. In other words, whoever knows the IP can easily find out where your house is, what your neighborhood is, or at least know what city you are in.
Tips to improve the privacy of all my digital devices
Knowing and being aware of what you should start doing on social networks, it is time to go up a notch and focus on the measures we must take to increase privacy on all our devices.
So take note and pay close attention:
Use a secure OS
We have already told you that operating systems can be our worst enemies when it comes to protecting our privacy, so our first advice is aimed at changing it. As much as you are used to the interface of, for example, Windows, you must understand that your security comes first, so if it is necessary to break old habits, you will have to do it.
Later we will tell you which are the safest operating systems that you can install on your computer, but for now it is important that you keep in mind that In order to be as private as possible, you’ll need to shed the OSes you’ve probably grown up with.
Install a secure browser
The next thing is to install a browser that is as secure as possible. This may not be as difficult for you as changing the operating systembut without a doubt many people are very fond of browsers like Chrome or Mozilla, but in recent years new alternatives have been born that many of these users have tried and they have also been cool for their versatility.
Delete Cookies
Although cookies are not a direct threat to our privacy, it is important to delete them as soon as possible. Many companies like Google already indicated that they would be eradicated…
Facebook Comments
Disqus