Avast Blog Tips & Advices: Protecting your personal data online

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Your personally identifiable information is online for anyone to see, but here’s how you can get it under control

In this post we’re sharing information on why you need to protect your personal data online, how that data is collected, and what you can do to minimize its collection. We’re not talking about intimate photos — if you put those online, you’re just being silly. We’re talking about the personal details that are used by advertisers and others to target you and, more importantly, that are used by cybercriminals to send phishing scams, conduct identity theft, and commit bank fraud in your name.

How your data is used, and why you need to protect it

Personal and confidential information usually goes by the American epithet, PII – or personally identifiable information. Otherwise known in Europe as personal data. This encompasses things like your social security number, credit card numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth, etc. It also refers to behavioral data, such as which websites you visit and which social media platforms you follow. The first thing to understand is that the criminal dark web, and advertisers’ databases, are awash with your personal information. It is out there. The second thing to understand is that these details tell them far more about you than you realize.

This is partly due to the growing power of artificial intelligence, which is used not only by the “good guys” to keep you safe, but also by their adversaries — the criminals who attempt to break through security and steal your personal information to use in malicious ways.

AI is also used by major platforms to develop algorithms to predict what you might want to buy and thus know what advertisements to put in front of you. One example of the power and accuracy of intelligent algorithms can be seen in the 2013 study at Cambridge University regarding user analysis based on Facebook ‘likes’. Analyzing just ten Facebook ‘likes’ enabled the researchers to understand the person better than his colleagues understood him. The more ‘likes’ that are analyzed, the greater the knowledge acquired. At 300 likes, the algorithm understood the subject better than the subject’s partner or spouse. And algorithms have improved consistently since 2013.

Ways in which your data is gathered

Before we look at ways to protect your personal identity, we need to understand how your data is gathered. We’ll examine five primary methods

1. Cookies

Cookies are tiny files placed on your computer via your browser when you visit websites. There are two basic types: session and persistent. Session cookies are good. They enable us to move from one part of a website (say, a product page) to another (say, a checkout page) without having to continually re-log in for every page. Session cookies last only as long as your current session, and should automatically be removed when you log out of the website or close your browser. Persistent cookies can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. They are placed on your computer and they stay on your computer. They are primarily used by marketing firms to track your browsing history. For example, If you keep visiting shoe stores, you will soon be followed by ads for shoes regardless of the site you visit. In some cases this can be intrusive, while in others it may be welcome because the ads are relevant to you.

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