--Originally published at Digital Identity
Introduction
Over the last days I’ve been writing about the differences between your personal physical identity and the digital identity, on how to start building your identity online, the importance of presence, being visitors or residents, and digital education and citizenship. But what about the problems that the things we post can generate in a world where everyone think different and has a different personality? How can we keep our identity safe from those that only want to benefit from others?
These questions have different and multiple answers that goes from restricting what we publish to the use of programs to protect your passwords to prevent identity theft or even the use of different identities on different websites all these actions really depend on the risk we might be exposed to.
How people perceive their online security
- As I posted before there is a BCG ‘s representative survey of more than 3,000 European consumers revealed that 88% of people who are online consider at least one industry or sector a threat to their privacy.(Boston Consulting Group, 2012)
- In 2014 a PewResearch Center released a study on online harassment, that revealed that 73% of online users from the 2,849 interviewed have seen someone being harassed and 40% have actually suffered themselves. Also 66% of internet users that experienced online harassment said it most recently on a social networking site or app (Duggan, 2014).
This are just some surveys that have been conducted but over internet you can find a lot of information on what people think about its security, but how can we actually protect our identity or take measures to be safer online?
Restricting what you post
Even as I posted before and as Amy Burvall says “post about anything”, should be actually completed as follows “post about anything as long as it is morally correct”. When posting you need to take into consideration the consequences you might experience by doing so, any post is subject to generate a reaction on people that can be bad or good depending on the context and the content of what you post.
It is recommended to avoid mentioning publicly where do you live, where will you go, and any information that can be used to get on your account. If you really want to keep low your profile, you should remember that the information you have online is paired with the privacy you have so if you got less information you are safer.
The passwords and some useful tips
There are passwords for almost everything online, the Facebook account, email, Twitter, for mention some of them. But most of the time many people don’t know how to create a password that at the same time will be safe enough to avoid guessing it and easy to remember when needed. That’s why the “12345678” and “password” passwords still so popular(Titcomb, 2016).
- Use two step authentication: Email, social media, and other sites allow you to turn on 2-step verification which asks for a code from an app or texts you a number to enter every time you want to log in, this protect you in the way that if the person that is trying to get into your account figure out your password it will also need to have your phone to access the site he is trying.
- Use different email accounts and different password on each site: This will protect you even more, because if you only use one mail for all your accounts and the password of that mail is compromised, the one that access to the mail can change the password of your other accounts.
Videoconference
Conclusions
Digital identity involves a set of concepts that I’ve written about in the last posts. It is important to consider all the aspects that make up this identity and figure out how to protect it by remembering that everything you post will have a consequence for good or bad. It also vital to remember being a good citizen on the web and that all rules that apply in the real world also apply on internet, the empathy online is a concept we should never forget and we need to be open to other cultures and have tolerance to accept their ideas when differ from ours.
References
Boston Consulting Group. (2012, November). The Value of Our Digital Identity. Retrieved September 27, 2016, from http://www.libertyglobal.com/PDF/public-policy/The-Value-of-Our-Digital-Identity.pdf
Duggan, M. (2014, October 22). Online Harassment. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
Titcomb, J. (2016, March 23). Do you have one of the most common passwords? They’re ridiculously easy to guess. Retrieved September 30, 2016, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/01/26/most-common-passwords-revealed—and-theyre-ridiculously-easy-to/
