Safeguarding our digital selves
As a teacher returning to work after the summer break I was updated today about the latest safeguarding policy released by the Department for Education.
Obviously, this is about making sure that all children in education are safe. However, today I asked myself: do all adults actually safeguard themselves in the digital world? Can they do everything possible to keep their digital selves safe?
In times of digital transparency how can we protect ourselves from vulnerabilities? How can we ensure that only information we really want to share is available and published? Which tools can we use to do so?
GDPR is supposed to help us protect our personal data, but if we agree to most T&C’s on any website , and let’s be honest who reads through them, are we really in the know of what happens with it?
If you ever Google yourself as everyone should do - it’s eye-opening for some who believe they’re invisible - you get a good idea of what the world wide web knows about you. Go on, do it! What did you find?
I found a lot I expected to find, but one result truly surprised me! No, no embarrassing revelations, no scandals. Instead I stared at a profile of a woman with my name, my old address and about 10 years younger. She had three keywords describing her: German, nightclubs, protestant!
