Before we start pitching you with different ways to keep yourself safe from tracking technology, here is a little insight: major focus or you could say job of anyone working in marketing field is to track people to as minute detail as possible in order to figure out what they prefer and hence would buy. This allows them to effectively advertise their products and services.
There are different forms and types of tracking in this field. One of the types of tracking is physical tracking. By physical tracking we do not mean that the tech industry sends their employees to monitor customers physically in real life, but instead, physical tracking happens via smartphone, which we carry everywhere.
Another type of tracking involves tracking information from all websites, social media platforms, and places we visit online. This type of tracking is called virtual tracking.
You might not feel threatened yet and think of this process as part of creating advertisements for the industry, but in reality, the more you get to know about how your information is being collected, shared, and then sold, the more you will be concerned about your privacy.
While there is a lot of material online through which you can understand how different companies are consuming your information to benefit their business, but there is little authentic information on how users can protect their data from these companies.
Don’t fret though, we are here to share the most authentic and effective ways that can help you protect your information from being tracked or hacked.
Strict Security Hygiene
The director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Eva Galperin, points out some steps that can make the whole “protecting your information from technology” easier. These steps include:
- Use strong passwords
We live in a time where we need to have strict security hygiene. The coronavirus outbreak all across the world and especially in the United States have shifted employees into their homes. Working from home means increase in negligence towards cyber security, which is a threat to their personal information as well as company’s information.
To make sure you are on the right path for protecting yours and your company information the first thing you need to do is have strong passwords on all of your devices at home. Starting with your internet connection system such as your router, it should have a strong password, which you should distribute to everyone and anyone.
Apart from the router, you need to make sure that your data is protected from your ISP as well and so you need a reliable internet connection. If you are living in the United States, then you have a good number of reliable internet connection providers to choose from. From reliable internet and cable TV packages such as Spectrum Silver TV, Spectrum is one of the best ISPs in the country. Some other reliable internet providers include WOW and Comcast among others. In short, America has a great slot of internet service providers to choose from.
Password manager: Having a password manager can help you keep track of all of your passwords. According to Eva Galperin, with a password manager you only need to remember one passphrase for your password manager, instead of remembering all of the passwords you have for different devices and platforms.
Two-factor authentication: Enabling two-factor authentication on all your devices is one of the most basic steps in protecting your privacy. Two-factor authentication system in devices acts as an additional layer of protection apart from having strong passwords.
Security Updates
If you get irritated with the frequent nudges you receive from your smartphone and computer to install the latest security software, then you need to know how crucial these nudges are.
Instead of ignoring the constant popups from your devices guiding you to update your security system, you should always look out for the latest safety update in your devices, on your own.
It is crucial that you keep updating your devices updated with the latest security updates because companies are always working out on fixing security bugs and, for this purpose, they issue patches in their security update for you to install.
Therefore, if you ignore the update you will not be able to benefit from the latest security defense systems that keep your crucial information in your devices secure.
Be aware
Not all of the attack in your personal information comes from technology tracking and security bugs, instead, some of them come from hackers trying to break into your accounts.
Therefore, it is important to keep yourself educated about different ways of protecting your data from all types of attacks.
