UCL digifest

How much of you are ‘living’ online?

Posted on August 14, 2014 Updated on August 15, 2014

Family dinner on Friday night. Party at the hip new club in town. A promotion at work.

The average online user in this day and age would have these events posted on Instagram, checked in on Foursquare, or tweeted on Twitter. These tidbits of information might seem harmless, but is that all there is to it? Check out this video:

It’s amazing how much personal information we put out there in plain view of the whole world, without even realising it. The idea of “privacy” is changing with the way we are using the internet, and many may not be aware of the security issues that come from being lax with your privacy.

Stats by Credit Sesame show that 80% of burglars use social media like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare in search for the next target. Posting status updates or tweets announcing a long vacation or uploading pictures of valuable things you own has been proven to compromise your “social security”.

Cory Doctorow, author of the novel Little Brother, said it well: “Privacy” doesn’t mean that no one in the world knows about your business. It means that you get to choose who knows about your business” (read more from his article on online privacy here).

This means controlling what you share online, who you share it with and how you protect what you share from unwanted third parties. Facebook allows selective sharing of status updates, photos and other posts while Twitter lets you put a lock on the door to your tweets. But there’s also your browsing and search history, eBaying, online shopping and sign-ups that require your personal information and allows your data to be accessed; so it is important to clear your data and be extra careful when revealing certain information online.

You know what they say, once you put something on the internet, it’s there forever…which means there will always be a trace of you somewhere even you think it’s not accessible to the rest of the world. This could lead to unwanted conversations in awkward situations…

Source: http://blogs.trb.com/news/opinion/chanlowe/blog/

Your digital footprint could well affect your employability. These issues are what we at digifest want to address; so don’t forget to visit our site and drop by our event to check out what we’re doing!

Useful tips on online privacy and security:

• Safeguarding Identity – getsafeonline.org
• Privacyrights.org has a comprehensive guide to protecting your online privacy and security.