Being a part of the online world brings with it dangers, but like most dangers, there are ways to avoid them.
In this post I want to discuss the issue of online privacy.
In this post I want to discuss the issue of online privacy.
What does the internet have to say about you?
Even if you're one of the diminishing few yet to embrace the world of social media, information about you will almost certainly have found its way online in some form.
As a quick demonstration of this, I took to the internet to google myself. I did this assuming knowledge of only two things:
My name: Matt Whibley
My country of residence: New Zealand
As a quick demonstration of this, I took to the internet to google myself. I did this assuming knowledge of only two things:
My name: Matt Whibley
My country of residence: New Zealand
I found my LinkedIn page, from which I discovered my occupation, details about my tertiary education, and the location of my schooling.
A link took me to Google Maps, where I discovered a review I had written for a local florist. I also found several restaurant reviews I'd made .
Google linked me to my Facebook page, where I was able to access the following:
- A photograph of myself
- My hometown
- My current town of residence
- A full list of my Facebook friends
I was linked to a post I made on Physicsforums.com, looking for feedback on a collection of physics animations I had created.
I found a comment I'd made on a Youtube video 4 years ago.
I found my name in the Hauraki Herald acknowledging my coaching of football for that year. Unlike the other items, this is information I neither created or consented to.
Okay, that wasn't so bad
None of the above is information I'm uncomfortable sharing with the public. This is by no means a happy accident. At the beginning of my career in teaching I spent several hours pruning my online presence. In the next section I'd like to outline a few ways in which you could do the same.
How to limit your online presence
If you are concerned about how much of your information might be freely accessible online, there are a few key things you can do:
- Google yourself. You may be surprised at how much you find. If it's information you yourself have created, it can most likely be hidden or removed with just a few clicks. In some cases however, you may need to make contact with the website administrators. Google offers a framework of powerful tools to help you filter your search results, such as searching for an exact phrase. See here for more information.
- Tighten up your privacy settings on social media. Facebook in particular offers a respectable set of privacy settings, including the ability to assign different privacy settings to different groups of friends. It also has a "View as..." feature that allows you to see how your profile appears to different people.
- Create a separate email, username, and password for online accounts you'd rather not associate with your real name.