The web exposes everyone to several privacy risks. Your name, date of birth, and email address can be enough information for some bad people to find information about you that you would rather have left private. So, where do you start with ensure your personal information is safe online? How do you better protect your information that is already there? How do you avoid sharing anymore of your personal information? Let’s take a look!
Your Email Address
One of the first pieces of identifying information you give websites, companies, and clients is your email address. Your email address may be directly linked to your name. Create multiple email addresses with your email service provider to use for different purposes. For example, finanace@(yourbusiness).com would be used only for your banking, payment, and accounting services. This helps alleviate the access to the same email by customers or individuals who may try to access your accounts without permission.
Domain Name Privacy
When buying a domain name from your registrar, you must use your personal information such as your name, email, phone number, and address. This is accessible to the public and will mostly be picked up and used for spam emails and calls offering services. To help prevent this annoyance, utilize the registrars domain protection/privacy services. This hides your information from the public eye. In most cases, this is an annual fee that you can purchase and attach to your domain when you purchase it.
Business Mail Services
If you run your online business from your home, you may not want to use your home address for shipping displaying on your marketing materials. Instead, you can pay for a business mail service. UPS and USPS offer these at some of their locations for a fee. Prices vary by plans and locations.
Business Phone Number
There are several instances when you will need to add a phone number to an account. Whether it is a your bank or your social media accounts, make sure you are not using your personal number. Your personal number is linked to so much of your own information, and possibly your family’s information. There are several services and applications that allow you to forward a business number to your personal device without compromising your personal number’s confidentiality. As a bonus, this is a great way to really “turn-on” your at-home mode outside of your working hours.
