How to protect your personal data ?

Enabling them to better target their customers as part of their advertising actions, data is a real gold mine for companies. In order to prevent abuses and abuses, their collection and use are however very supervised. To optimize the protection of their privacy, everyone can also take measures.

Why our personal data is collected ?

Most often, the personal data are collected at commercial purpose. Indeed, they allow a company to collect details on prospects and thus toimprove your ad targeting. More specifically, a brand will be able to get closer to potential customers by developing personalized communication from the personal information it has acquired.

It will also be able to offer them services or products that perfectly meet their needs or desires.

The collection of personal information may also serve other purposes. For example, during the 2012 US presidential race, studying voter data helped Barack Obama raise more than $1 billion. Thanks to this analysis, information on undecided voters could also be collected.

The candidate used them to adjust his arguments to convince them to vote for him.

Who protects our personal data ?

In France, the Protection of personal data is governed by the Data Protection Act. The latter was amended by the law of 20 June 2018 relating to the protection of personal data to adapt to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). This regulation applies to companies, associations and public bodies that handle the private data of individuals located in the European Union.

In France, it is CNIL (National Commission for the’IT and freedoms) which is responsible for ensuring compliance with the GDPR. This authority can carry out inquiries with the structures concerned by the European regulation. She also has the power to implement corrective measures if a violation is committed.

In addition, she provides recommendations on the protection of personal data and deals with requests concerning any violation of the GDPR.

All those who process personal information have various solutions to ensure respect for the privacy of the individuals concerned. Data anonymization is one of them. Nevertheless, deviations can be observed.

It is therefore important to know how to protect your personal data.

How to protect your personal data on the Internet ?

There are several best practices that will help you secure your personal data on the Internet. You can start with change web browser. In particular, it is recommended to opt for firefox which allows you to choose from various levels of content blocking.

If you want to browse the web while keeping anonymity, orient yourself towards Tor Browser. Thanks to this browser, which deactivates by default all the scripts of the sites you access, you can surf using the HTTPS protocol.

Also remember to change the search engine. Google is widely used while keeping the browsing history of Internet users. However, it is possible to use other search engines that better guarantee respect for privacy, such as Qwant or of DuckDuckGo.

Furthermore, the use of a password manager is strongly recommended. In addition to saving your credentials, this tool can create a strong and unique password for all your online accounts. KeePass And Bitwarden are among the most popular solutions.

Also be sure to change DNS server. Most of the time automatically assigned by the Internet service provider, the latter can be used to spy on your browsing. Replacing it will not only allow you to bypass tracking, but also to surf faster.

In particular, you can opt for the DNS offered by Cloudflare.

You may find yourself using a Wi-Fi network that is weakly or not at all secure. Malicious individuals are likely to take advantage of this to seize’confidential or sensitive information. How to protect your personal data in this type of situation ? An effective method is to use a VPN connection.

Internet access will be with a other IP address than yours, which will prevent your identification. Avoid free VPNs though, as they won’t give you better protection for your private data.

On the other hand, if you have accessed a third-party service through a Google account, it is quite possible that your emails are read without your knowledge. In this case, it is advisable to turn to a secure e-mail provider such as ProtonMail.

Finally, use a email using end-to-end encryption to protect you from the risk of spying on your private conversations. Signal And Telegram are among the recommended solutions.

You wonder how to protect your personal data on your smartphone ? Be aware that the measures to be adopted are practically the same as those listed above.

How to check if our personal data is publicly disseminated on the Internet ?

It is crucial to know how to protect your personal data. Learn to check whether these have been publicly disseminated on the Internet lis just as much.

Currently, the creation of an account is generally required to benefit from online services. As part of this process, you may be required to enter your name, email address, date of birth, bank details, etc. However, websites are often attacked by hackers, resulting in personal data leaks on the web.

To determine if your information has been stolen and leaked on the internet, go to Have I Been Pwned. All you have to do is enter the email address you used to create an online account in the field provided. One of the following situations will then arise:

• The screen changes to Green, which means that no data leakage concerns you;
• The screen becomes red, which means that a site you have accessed has suffered a cyberattack and that you are the victim of data theft. The name of the site and the nature of the information stolen will also be specified.

In the second case, immediately change your password on the site in question. Also take the trouble to replace any passwords you use on other sites if they are the same. Hackers can indeed test the identifiers they have stolen on different sites that may have collected your personal data.