Identity theft has been plaguing the Internet. People are concerned about how they can protect themselves from this threat. While some technologically adept ones could by themselves find means to do so, many would still depend on experts for advice. Plain internet users are always in danger of losing their identity. This results to numerous possibilities of problems that could be avoided only if they knew how to protect themselves.
Darrell West, vice president and director of both Governance Studies and the Center for Technology Innovation in Washington, is an expert in this field. He has given advice to people about how they can protect themselves in the digital world. He has also written articles on subjects concerning political, policy and legal challenges raised by digital technology.
He has detailed some of the logical ways to maintain online protection. The best according to him is “choosing non-obvious passwords” and using different passwords for different accounts. One should not use his or her partner’s name, date of birth, hometown, and other obvious personal information. Clearly, these data are now online, contained in social networking or other public sites. Data miners could simply do some tricks and they could steal one’s identity.
As to the choice of websites, West recommends that one should read first the site’s online privacy policy. Try to discover whether or how that website will employ information. Be particular with how cookies will be used for tracking visitors and what the company does with information. Find out whether the company sells information to other vendors. One should see a very strong policy that protects consumer interests for the site to be trusted.
Consumers can also protect themselves against companies that gather information on users’ browsing history. Many sites track internet browsing history by the use of cookies. The best thing to do is not to accept cookies when prompted. Another way to do this is for the user to go into the tool history of his or her internet browser and delete cookie tracking. As much as possible, one should use the most recent version of an internet browser.
With regards to internet privacy laws, West recommends that legislators should update the rules which are no longer applicable or are outdated. Some laws were written before the advent of the internet, even before that of social media and other new digital platforms. It would be easier for law enforcement to police the digital world and guard people against identity theft with updated laws.
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