Simple Privacy Steps You Can Take Today

Opt-Out of Use of Your Credit Reports for Marketing Purposes. - Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies (i.e. Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion) are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you. The FCRA also provides you the right to "Opt-Out", which prevents Consumer Credit Reporting Companies from providing your credit file information for marketing purposes. To opt out for five years: Call toll-free 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit www.optoutprescreen.com. The phone number and website are operated by the major Consumer Credit Reporting Companies.

Add Your Telephone Numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry. - You can reduce the number of unwanted sales calls you get by signing up for the National Do Not Call Registry. It’s free. Legitimate companies don't call if your number is on the Registry. If a company is ignoring the Registry, there’s a good chance that it’s a scam.

 

Add HTTPS Everywhere to Your Browser. - HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox, Chrome, and Opera extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.

 

Add Privacy Badger to Your Browser. - Privacy Badger blocks spying ads and invisible trackers. Privacy Badger is a browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.  If an advertiser seems to be tracking you across multiple websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks that advertiser from loading any more content in your browser.  To the advertiser, it's like you suddenly disappeared.

Start using a encrypted e-mail service such as Tutanota or ProtonMail. - End-to-end email encryption is a method of transmitting data where only the sender and receiver can read email messages. With end-to-end email encryption, the data is encrypted on the sender’s system. Only the intended recipient will be able to decrypt and read it.

Start using an end-to-end encrypted messenger such as Signal, Wire, or Wickr. - Don't send SMS / Text Messages. According to the American Bar Association (2015): ‘While text messages have increasingly replaced phone calls, users do not always stop and realize that individually identifiable information, once captured in a traditional text message or third-party messaging system, likely becomes a PII record.’ Consumer text messaging services also offer little protection from sending messages to an unintended recipient.

Use a Search Engine that Doesen't Track You - like Duck Duck Go.

 

 

 

Keep Yourself Informed. Visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense site. Surveillance Self-Defense is a guide to protecting yourself from electronic surveillance for people all over the world. Some aspects of this guide will be useful to people with very little technical knowledge, while others are aimed at an audience with considerable technical expertise and privacy/security trainers.

 



 

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