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Protection and privacy online

Professor Nick Patterson talks about how to protect your information online.
Screenshot with words system protected
© Deakin University

Using everyday online services and social media sites can lead to your private information being at risk.

Most of us want to keep the convenience and benefits of doing business on the internet while keeping our information private. The good news is that there are a range of tools we can use to do this.

Read this informative article 11 free tools to protect your online activity from surveillance. These tools can be used as part of employees’ daily activities and incorporated into routine tasks. Download some of the free tools introduced in this step and be more secure.

Let’s take a look at two of the tools in a little more detail.

Privacy Badger

This tool is a web browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from being able to secretly track which web pages you visit. One key advantage of Privacy Badger is that if it suspects an entity (maybe a website or advertiser) is trying to track you across multiple websites, it will automatically block that entity.

Signal

This tool is for phone calls and text messaging, as opposed to web activity. Signal is one of the better tools you can use for encrypted phone conversations. Even Hillary Clinton used Signal, as reported in this Fortune article explaining how she came to use it. It uses end-to-end encryption to secure your communication, and no information is stored on any servers. Why is this important? One example is explained in this Guardian piece exploring the NSA’s warrantless searches into people’s information.

Your task

Download some of these free tools we’ve covered and test them out. Do you find them effective? Should everyone keep their information private while online or is this simply more relevant to business owners?

© Deakin University
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