Getting Around Identity Theft

Identity theft has continuously posed danger to Internet users. People are trying to look for ways about how they can protect themselves. Some technologically adept users do it by themselves, but others would still depend on experts for advice. Plain internet users end up as easy targets of people who make money by using other people’s identity. There are numerous possibilities of problems that could be avoided only if these users knew how to protect themselves.

The vice president and director of both Governance Studies and the Center for Technology Innovation in Washington, Darrell West, gives expert advice. He has given instructions to people about how they can protect themselves in the digital world. West has also written articles on other fields like political, policy and legal challenges raised by digital technology.

His instructions focus on the sound ways of maintaining online protection. For him, the best way is “choosing non-obvious passwords” and using different passwords for different accounts. Passwords such as partner’s name, date of birth, hometown, and other obvious personal information only invite problems. With the popularity of social networking and other public sites, clearly these data are now online. Data marketers could simply do some tricks and they could intrude one’s privacy.

Before trusting a website, West recommends that one should read first its online privacy policy. Try to ascertain whether or how that website will make use of information. Pay attention to how cookies will be used for tracking customers and what the company does with information. Learn whether the company sells information to a third party. A trusted site should have a very strong privacy policy that protects consumer interests.

Consumers can do something against companies that gather information by tracking users’ browsing history. Through the effective use of cookies, many sites track internet browsing history. The best solution is not to accept cookies when prompted. With a little browsing skill, the user could go into the tool history of his or her internet browser and delete cookie tracking. Furthermore, one should make use of the most recent version of an internet browser.

With regards to internet privacy laws, West advises that lawmakers should modernize the rules which are no longer applicable or are obsolete. Some internet privacy laws are older than the Internet, much more than social media and other new digital platforms. Updated laws would make it easier for authorities to regulate the digital world and safeguard people against identity theft.

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