With the increasing number of cyber attacks, the internet is far from a safe place. And on the other hand, the global population has started carrying out online activities more than ever. The recent Pandemic is one of the reasons for an exponential increase in people spending their time online. Education, Shopping, Banking, Streaming Movies, and Work From Home are a few things that have made the Internet the most valuable and most needed commodity today.
The problem with online activities is that you need credentials to access your accounts which have all your information like your address, your mobile number, social security, driver’s license, credit card info, and a lot more. Most organizations promise to keep your information safe and at the same time are involved in data-selling activities.
How Do Organizations Keep Our Data Secure?
Organizations promise to encrypt your information on their server and not share it with anyone. But with the increasing number of hacks, you know that your information is not safe. On the other hand, many companies are in the process of anonymizing the data and deriving general statistics on human behavior to better understand the market. This data is given to others, either within the company or to third parties, once it has been anonymized. The company that gathered your information followed its policy of only sharing data anonymously, rather than selling or otherwise disseminating it inside the organization or to third parties.
It is assured that companies delete information that may be immediately connected back to an individual, businesses and organizations anonymize or de-identify data about their consumers’ behavior and interests. This contains information such as names, addresses, and credit card numbers. Some companies claim to merely share aggregate data, which is when your information is aggregated with that of a large number of other people and presented as a single number. Individual privacy is thought to be better protected by aggregate data than anonymized data.
How is the data linked back to you?
Cross-referencing anonymous data with other publicly available information, such as census statistics, is known as de-anonymization or re-identification. It’s surprisingly simple to find out who a few data points belong. In the United States, a ZIP code, gender, and date of birth are sufficient to identify the majority of people, and some websites allow you to test this. Then there’s the data broker Experian’s recent sale of a dataset of 120 million unidentifiable households, each with 248 pieces of information. Based on what we’ve seen thus far, there’s a minimal possibility that this data will remain anonymous.
How to Become More Anonymous?
The only way to achieve 100% anonymity is by never using the internet again. Sounds Crazy? But at least, you can maximize your anonymity by taking certain steps. There are, however, techniques to boost your online anonymity and make it more difficult for others to identify you.
Personal information should not be shared
Of course, because our lives are becoming increasingly connected to the internet, this is difficult. You can still maintain some control over your privacy by using as few online services as possible and opting out of any data collection or sharing. Consider deleting accounts you don’t use anymore. As much as possible, avoid giving out your email, phone number, address, gender, and birth date.
Check out the privacy policies
You may limit who has access to your information by being judicious about which services you join up for. Examine a company’s privacy policy for data gathering and sharing methods before joining up. This even applies to the doctor you select. Patient data is a multibillion-dollar industry, and data de-anonymization might make your clinical records public.
Use A Virtual Private Network
One of the best VPN services for Windows is Systweak VPN, which combines smart DNS with a kill switch. This VPN for Windows protects your online privacy by allowing anonymous browsing and concealing your IP address with military-grade AES 256-bit encryption. You can bypass ISP throttling by using our free VPN service. Systweak VPN has several useful functions in addition to masking your IP address and protecting you from the dangers of public Wi-Fi.
Your IP address is modified when you use a virtual private network to hide your physical location. To change your VPN server to, say, the United States, simply tap the country, and Systweak VPN will use a clever algorithm to choose the fastest server available. Systweak VPN, for example, offers 4500 servers in 53 countries and 200 distinct locations throughout the world. Your app builds an encrypted tunnel around all of your device’s traffic when you connect to the server you’ve chosen.
There are no restrictions based on location. When using a virtual private network application like Systweak VPN, all IP region-based restrictions imposed by streaming services like Netflix are removed.
Maintains the user’s security and privacy. A VPN application provides privacy and security by preventing hackers from tracing your original IP address or location. Viruses, malware, and other forms of trackers are also absent from your laptop.
Sharing files safely and securely. You may relax knowing that data sent over a public Wi-Fi network is encrypted and inaccessible to hackers.
Secure remote access is available. You may quickly set up remote access from your laptop to your company or home computer if you activate your VPN on any network, including public Wi-Fi.
The Final Word On Why is your Personal Data no longer anonymous online?
The battle of anonymity will be a never-ending battle. As we discover more and more ways to safeguard our information, malicious actors and cybercriminals will work even harder to find out ways to infiltrate our new security measures. The only way we can assure maximum protection is by adapting to the latest security measures and keeping ourselves updated.
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