With many organisations including governments undergoing digital transformations in recent years, there is now a very thin line between our physical and digital identities.
As I continuously reiterate, what you do online now does matter especially on social media which is where many of us tend to lower our guard on our privacy.
When you apply for a new job now, it is not uncommon for many employers to privately evaluate your social media presence to ascertain if you are a suitable candidate.
A misjudged tweet from years ago or an inappropriate Facebook photo can destroy future job prospects or ruin a career.
A Google search that reveals an old conviction can make it more difficult to get hired, and allegations of criminal conduct spread online can cause misery and impact your mental wellbeing.
There’s the idea that once something is online, it is immortal, immutable, and almost impossible to contain.
You should not put anything online you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see, although sometimes you aren’t in control of what gets published by others.
Abuse, stalking, and bullying may also factor as reasons to erase our digital footprints and seize control of our devices.
If you want to take control of your privacy and online data, according to an excellent article on ZDNet.com here are some tips to get you started.
Firstly, remove yourself from internet search results and limit access to your accounts:
The Google search engine, among others, is a double-edged sword: It provides links and website addresses to users in response to search queries, but unless the right controls are in place, your search queries can be catalogued for marketing purposes.
These engines search can also be used to uncover exactly what information about you is in the public domain. Once you know what is online, you can start tackling the problem.
Run a quick search for your full name and note any website domains that flag you, social media account links, YouTube videos, and anything else of interest. In the EU, citizens can request the removal of information from Google search results.
After filling in this form, requests are reviewed by Google employees on a case-by-case basis. You must provide the specific URLs you want delisted, and any search queries related to these URLs, and you must explain why the tech giant should agree to your request.
Google may not accept every request to remove links relating to you. Reasons given for refusal include technical reasons, duplicate URLs, information deemed “strongly in the public interest,” and whether or not the content on a web page relates to professional lives, past convictions, work positions, or self-authored content.
You can’t control your digital footprint without knowing where and what information concerning you is stored – and what has been leaked online. There are tools available to help you find these.
There are also several services available out there where you can pay to keep your information away from data brokers. One example is DeleteMe, a paid subscription service that maintains tabs on data collectors and removes data such as names, current and past addresses, dates of birth, and aliases on your behalf.
This monitoring can keep your private information out of search results and away from platforms such as open people search databases. When it comes to mailing lists, services such as Unroll. me can list everything you are subscribed to, making the job of unsubscribing from newsletters, company updates, and more far easier.
Next, lock down your social media or delete accounts entirely:
Facebook: In the Settings tab, you can download all of Facebook’s information on you. In the privacy tab, you should restrict your posts to “friends only” and limit your past posts, and you can decide to disallow lookups by your provided email address or phone number. You also have the option to remove your Facebook profile from search engine results outside of the social networking platform. Under the location tab, consider turning off location data collection by Facebook, too. If you look at apps and websites, you can see what is connected to your Facebook account. If you choose to delete these, Facebook can also automatically remove posts, videos, and events the connected service posted on your behalf.
Twitter: Twitter also allows users to request their archive, which is all the information collected from you. This option can be found under the settings and privacy tab. In the settings area, you can choose to lockdown your account and make tweets private. Under the safety portion of the tab, you can prevent your tweets from appearing in the search results of blocked users. You can also deactivate your account entirely.
Instagram: Facebook-owned Instagram has a number of privacy settings you can also change to maintain an acceptable level of privacy. By default, anyone can view your photos and videos on your Instagram account unless you are a minor, in which case your account should be private by default. However, by going to your profile, clicking settings, account privacy, and switching “private account” on, you can make sure your content is only viewed by approved users.
Remove everything: A more extreme option is to delete all of your primary social media accounts completely.
On Facebook, you can go to Settings and Privacy, and then Settings, select Your Facebook Information, and click on Deactivation & Deletion to deactivate it. This gives you the option to return at a later time and does not delete your data. Your settings, photos, and other content are saved, but your Facebook presence will not appear beyond unclickable text.
You can also permanently delete your account. If you have trouble finding this setting, you can type “delete Facebook” in the Help Center tab.
You are given a grace period to change your mind and log back in. It can take up to 90 days before the deletion of content on your Facebook wall and in your account will begin.
In order to deactivate Twitter, you need to click on Settings and privacy from the drop-down menu under your profile icon. From the Account tab, you can then click deactivate.
To delete your Instagram account, log in and go to the request deletion page. Once you have submitted an answer as to why you are deleting your account, you will be prompted to re-enter your password, and then a delete account option will appear.
You may have to manually log in to each account you want to remove and, depending on the service, delete your info from there or contact the service provider with the request.
If you cannot delete online accounts outright and can only deactivate them, before you do, delete as much content from them as possible. If you truly want to anonymise your online footprint, consider using the Tor onion router network.
If you use the Tor network to browse the Internet, anyone attempting to monitor you would be met with a series of nodes used to divert your encrypted traffic, making it very difficult to trace you back to an original IP address.
Tor blocks trackers and scripts that might follow you around, whether it is advertisers, your ISP, or individuals spying on you. The network is popular with activists, journalists, lawyers, and civil rights groups.
You may have come across embarrassing forum posts or messages that you do not have the privileges required to delete, or discover that sensitive personal images or videos of you have been shared without your permission.
The first step you should take is to contact organisations and webmasters directly. When you contact them, include a link to the content you are concerned about, give your reasons, and hope they agree to delete it.
However, do not expect an immediate response. It’s important to try and get the images or videos taken down as quickly as possible, not only to cut viewership, but for your own mental health.
If you are able, reach out to friends and families and ask them to also report offending posts or email webmasters on your behalf. If your images and videos have been uploaded to pornography services anonymously, however, you’ll be in for more of a battle – and it may be time to get law enforcement agencies involved.
If nothing else works starting from scratch may seem extreme, but it could be worth considering. The outright deletion of email accounts, social media, and e- commerce services won’t immediately destroy all of your data or search results connected to them, but it will, over time, make them less likely to appear.
Just make sure that before you take this irrevocable step, you have backed up any data that you want to keep, such as irreplaceable photos you have uploaded to social media or document scans stashed away in your email inbox.
As some comedian paraphrased: “Dance like nobody is watching. Text, post and email like it will be read in court someday!”
God bless and stay safe in both digital and physical worlds this weekend.
• ILAITIA B. TUISAWAU is a private cybersecurity consultant. The views expressed in this article are his and are not necessarily shared by this newspaper. Mr Tuisawau can be contacted on ilaitia@ cyberbati.com
