The Importance of Digital Privacy

By Atina Lee

What is Digital Privacy?

Digital privacy is the act of protecting one's personal information safe from the internet. This information includes your address, phone number, birthday, social security number and many more. With an increase of scams and hackers, it is important to keep your information in a tight lock so you won’t fall to identity theft which is when someone uses your information to pretend to be you or just has your email get hacked.

According to the National Council of Identity Theft Protection, There were 5.7 million total fraud and identity theft reports, with 1.4 million of them being identity theft cases.

What Can You Do?

There are many ways you can strengthen your data online. These listed are the most common:

• Use 2-factor-authentication to secure your sign-ins

• Strengthen your passwords using a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols

• Don’t post anything private or things that can threaten your privacy. Remember, everything you do on the internet leaves a digital footprint!

• Use a VPN or browse in private

Your Digital Footprint

Your digital footprint is what you do on the internet, visit, and post on the internet. By being on the internet, you can be careful so be careful what you do! Keeping a good digital footprint is actually crucial to your life. For example, college admissions check on your digital footprint such as your Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. With a poor path, you can lose many things you applied for such as jobs and colleges.