How to Have Control Over Your Online Information

In the ancient times the power sources in the world were explained through the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. In the modern times, anecdotally (or not) it has been added a fifth one which has resulted to be a very powerful element: information - aka data.

We all have, create and use information in a daily basis, be this for personal or business reasons. So, how can something that everybody can have, be so powerful? Well, just like with the first four elements, its power resides on the hands of the one who uses it. Just to take one of them as example, since discovered fire has improved humans' lives by providing light, warmth and energy, or it has destroyed like nothing else by burning whole cities down. It was all depending on who was controlling it.

Same with information, in the right hands can bring incredible life improvements, in the wrong hands, can destroy and cause more damage than anything. But what can we do to make sure it stays in the right hands? If you are a person in a high position, in business or politics, you can do a lot about this, but that is a long topic for a whole other article. I will limit this article to people who don't have any special control over information in a big scale, but only in their personal information. Said this, let's answer the question, what can we do to make sure that our information is in the right hands?

We will have to start with something simple but not so straightforward. We first have to know what information we have created or was created about us, and then try to control it. So, when was the last time you googled yourself? If it has been more than 3 months I challenge you to do it now. Go, it takes 10 seconds, I will wait for you here.

Done? Great! You have found now some of your information that lives in the web about you, but don't be excited, I said some. Each website and Internet platform has a different policy on the things they share with search engines. Some share everything, some share just a public version of the information, some share nothing.

Due to this, we are going to need a second step to discover all your information online. There is a simple tool who can show you all the websites you have an account or are subscribed to. It does something even more amazing, but we will get to that in a bit. It is called Deseat.me and it was created by two Swedish developers. Try it with your email address and it will give you the complete list of Internet accounts that your email is connected to. If you are anything like me, you might get shocked to see how long is that list. You will find accounts you have completely forgotten or don't even remember opening.

And this is great, because now you have a much more realistic view of the amount of information that is about you out there in the Internet jungle. Now it is time to tidy up and organize it. Yes, we are going to Marie Kondo that information. I would highly suggest her method to do it. Take each account separately and ask yourself: Does this account spark joy? (I know, I know, it sounds silly, but it works, seriously.) If the answer is yes, keep it, if the answer is no, delete it, permanently.

But how to delete the ones you don't want? You can automatically use Deseat.me to send a Data Removal Request to each site and they will have to delete all your data (Disclaimer, it works better if you live in Europe, where GDPR applies). Or if you have the time and the password you can go and delete all of them yourself. Please do not forget to remove the rights of Deseat.me also after you are done.

Everything you removed will be soon reflected in the search engines, by not showing up there anymore. If you want it removed immediately from there too, you can use their content removal tools as well. Here the links for Google and Bing.

Last step, but crucial for a healthy online presence, is to do a privacy cleanup for all the sites you decided to keep. You can delete old posts, photos, emails, search history, restrict access rights and whatever you think improves your privacy. At the end of this your should leave only information you absolutely and with complete conscience decide to allow to be on the Internet, at least for the time being.

Make sure that whatever is left will be saved in an organized way so from now on you will know where and what information is online about you. I would highly recommend a Password Manager for this. They are not only the best method to generate, save and auto-fill passwords, but can be a great database for all your accounts where you can run time after time cleanups.

There you go, congratulations! You just took a huge step in having control over your information. I hope this article and tips were helpful. Please keep in mind that this process might vary from a couple of minutes to a couple of months, depending on how active you are online. Just be patient and go through it, you will feel great when you are done.

And now I would like to hear from you. What strategies and tools do you use to control your online information? Share with us in the comments. Check also my previous article about Why You Need to Think About Cybersecurity and feel free to share your thoughts. Writing on LinkedIn is a new thing for me, any feedback helps tremendously.

Source:Linkedin Enkeleda Ibrahimi