You're leaving digital evidence everywhere. Here's how to clean up after yourself

The majority of American's have a fear that the data they are leaving behind will be misused, but that concern appears to be taking a backseat to convenience and fun.

As of February of 2019, 81% of American's owned a smartphone. That's up from just 35% in 2011. It's not uncommon to interact with your phone nearly 100 times per day and dedicate hours of screen time to it answering emails, shopping, banking and using social media. The use of electronic devices results in digital evidence of your activities being left behind, whether you're posting to social media, searching Google or checking in for your flight.

Studies have shown that the majority of American's have a fear that the data they are leaving behind will be misused, but that concern appears to be taking a backseat to convenience and fun. Asking people to remove themselves from the Internet or many of the common digital conveniences of life is impractical, therefore it's important for people to know how to limit their footprint and clean up after themselves periodically.

Active Online Engagement - What may come back to haunt you

It's almost second nature to scroll through social media, liking pictures, meme's, quotes and more along the way. Perhaps you engaged in a heated political exchange in the comments section at one point in time or left an emotional google review for a business after getting less than desirable service or quality. These thing can stay with you for years, if not forever. What may have seemed harmless ten years ago could be viewed in a completely different context today. People make mistakes, mature, gain a different perspective, and change their minds all the time, but original thoughts and endorsements remain online, especially if you don't clean them up.

Spend some time going through your past social media and other Internet activity. Is there anything here others may find harmful today or that you now regret saying? Would you be comfortable with your current or future employer seeing it? If not, delete it. When you post anything online you need to be asking yourself the important question of whether or not you're prepared for this content to be tied to your name or not. You are always one post away from going viral, sometimes in the worst way imaginable.

Passive Engagement - Where are you being tagged and tracked?

While people and businesses are in control of almost all published content under their names, other scenario's exist that may link you to content unexpectedly and without consent. If you allow tagging on social media platforms a friend could take an embarrassing picture of you and post it online for the world to see. As a business, one of your employees could publish controversial and/or sensitive information and quickly link it to you.

If you allow location services on your devices you may be unintentionally advertising your location when publishing new content and putting yourself at risk in a number of different ways. Furthermore, if you allow phone applications to track your location continuously you may want to consider re-configuring the settings specific to each application. There are productive reasons for your phones location services, such as GPS, weather radar and more, but in the hands of the wrong app your location data could be getting stored in places you wouldn't be comfortable with.

Internet of Things - It doesn't end with social media

While there's a perception that social media is the primary hotbed for digital breadcrumbs, a new wave of IoT devices has introduced more information collection that many of us are completely unaware of. Thermostats, home locks, surveillance systems, medical devices and more are now connected to the Internet and collecting mountains of information about you and your habits. While some may be logging these details to provide you with a better future experience, others are storing your information and potentially making it available to partners for advertising and more.

Be aware of the devices you're introducing to your home or business, read privacy statements carefully, and configure devices accordingly. In many cases, there are safe ways to either avoid platforms with privacy issues or use them without sharing information you'd like to keep private.

In summary

• Don't post anything on the Internet that you wouldn't want your friends, employer, or customers to see

• Review your previous posts and online engagements - delete content you may no longer agree with or want public

• Assume every product is collecting information about you for later use, even if this is not reality. You'll make better decisions as a result

• Turn off tagging features in social media platforms

• Enable privacy settings in mobile applications

• Configure location services to each phone application. Some need more visibility than others

• Read privacy statements from products before using them, especially IoT devices

For more information, please contact info@advosec.com

#privacy #socialmedia #cybersecurity #IoT