Would you be willing to walk down the street with your credit card number displayed on your T-shirt? To distribute personal photos at random when you meet? Probably not. All this information that you disseminate online in the form of data deserves to be protected or, in any case, that you are fully aware of the consequences incurred. That’s all the object ofa new co-innovation campaign launched by EDF Pulse & You until May 15 to understand your relationship to your personal data, in particular for better customer service or when using connected objects. Before sharing all your good ideas, a brief overview of the good reflexes to adopt to protect all your information.
Limit the information published
It may seem a bit repetitive, but it can always be useful to remember, do not forget the principle of minimization: limit the information that you deliver on the Internet as much as possible. For online forms, for example, only fill in the boxes that are mandatory or necessary for the quality of service expected. On social networks, it is up to you to fully understand what you are posting and the use that can be made of it, or at least to limit its scope through privacy settings. Some Pulsers also mention it on the platform, indicating that they choose not to share photos of their families on social networks for example.
Moreover, do not forget either that the contents diffused on Facebook remain your intellectual property but can be used by the company ” to host, use, distribute, modify, perform, copy, publicly perform or publicly display, translate and create derivative works of your content “. Clearly, the photo of your baby can be reused for example in advertisements for the social network, without your consent…
And you, have you ever had negative or positive experiences with your personal data ? Tell us about your experiences with EDF Pulse platform and try to win the following prizes: an iPhone 13, a Viewsonic mini-video projector, a Western Digital Element 2 terra hard drive, or a special prize if you answer all the survey questions: Bitdefender antivirus for one year!
Find out before accepting
The second reflex, even if it may seem a little laborious, consists in reading the conditions carefully before clicking on “accept”. Since May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires all websites accessible from the European Union to inform Internet users of the data they collect and the rights they can exercise to delete it. . Not always easy, especially since some site designers make things complicated and you don’t necessarily have the time to read these tedious texts each time you connect to a site… In any case, you always have the possibility to report to the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil) any abuses that you may have observed.
Reduce your traces on the Internet
To reduce its traces on the Internet, opt for the private mode. This feature is offered by most browsers on the market so as not to save browsing history, passwords or cookies. Please note that “private” does not necessarily mean completely incognito because personal information is often transmitted to the sites visited, such as the IP address. Some browsers also offer extensions, such as uBlock Origin, which block data trackers from advertising agencies. You also have the solution of virtual private network (VPN). This software, to be installed on your computer or smartphone, allows you to access the Web privately, via a connection via a kind of secure tunnel that hides your IP address and also prevents any applications or sites from intercepting your data.
Choose the appropriate browser and search engine
About browser, if the famous Google Chrome is the most used, it is unfortunately the one that retains the most traces of your passage on the Internet. One of the reflexes to have is therefore to go and configure the parameters of your account in order to reduce the data collected. Otherwise, opt for browsers that are just as effective but much more respectful of your privacy, for example Firefox, created by the non-profit foundation Mozilla. Other search engines like Qwant, Lilo or even Ecosia exist and for some the advertisements linked to your requests make it possible to finance solidarity projects.
Set permissions
On the smartphone side, the basic reflex is to clearly define the permissions you grant to each installed application. Photos, microphone, location… It’s up to you to see what is really useful for the service you are looking for. It is also strongly advised not to leave your geolocation and Wi-Fi permanently active, because even when you are not using these functions, signals are sent and allow you to be tracked… You can also do appeal to Exodus Privacy, a French non-profit association led by hacktivists whose purpose is the protection of privacy. It offers a platform for analyzing Android applications with the aim of listing embedded trackers and disabling some of them.
To do the housework
Last reflex: clean up! Since browsers are data gluttonous by nature, it is strongly recommended that you regularly clear history and cookies. Similarly for all your accounts on social networks, delete those that you no longer use or at least remove certain photos or comments that you no longer seem to correspond to you. An article published by the magazine The Tiger, certainly more than a decade ago but yet still fully relevant, is quite edifying on the subject. The idea was to create a portrait of a stranger from all the traces he had left on the Internet. The portrait of Marc L***, describes the supposed life of a person who had posted no less than 17,000 photos on his various accounts. It makes you think…
Personal data, we use it to connect to our favorite sites, to control our connected objects, to pay, to automate certain tasks… And you concretely, would you be ready to exchange personal data to improve your customer experience? Share your feedback with us EDF-Pulse before May 15 and try to win the prizes at stake!
Subject produced in partnership with EDF teams
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