Protect Your Privacy
Information is Searchable Online
Before the advent of the Internet, the privacy of many types of "public"
information was protected by the effort required to access it. Now it
can be accessed and also combined with other data that can make it much
more important or even dangerous. For example you can search on the
Internet for birthdays, addresses, maps and driving directions, aerial
photos, a mother's maiden name, and many other types of information.
Searchers can get assistance from online companies to do background
research and retrieve detailed information about an individual's assets
(cars, boats, bank accounts etc.), auto tags, motor vehicle records,
court actions, criminal records (felony & misdemeanor), death records,
divorce, investments (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.), marriages,
phone number traces, real estate, and much, much more.
Specific Technology Issues
Publishing photographs — especially with directory or
other information about a person's location or schedule — could
facilitate harassment or even lead to serious danger, especially if
website access is not restricted, but is open to the general public.
The ability to send email without identifying yourself is
considered essential by many Internet users, especially for discussions
of sensitive personal or medical topics. Libraries are particularly
concerned about protecting the privacy of their public access
workstation facility users. However, there are concerns about allowing
some types of anonymous messages, such as credible threats of harm.
Defining the appropriate terms and conditions for online anonymity is an
ongoing debate.
Anonymity
on the Internet Must be Protected,
a paper by
Karina Rigby of MIT, provides a good outline of the issues.
Identity theft occurs when someone hijacks a consumer's
personal identifying information - name, address, credit card or Social
Security number - and uses the data to open new charge accounts, order
merchandise, or borrow money. See
Identity Theft
information from the
California Office of Privacy Protection.
Statistics on what web pages are accessed by whom ("cookies")
are readily collected by those who run the websites. Such information is
very valuable to commercial companies who can create contact lists to
sell specific types of products or services. See
Penn's Cookie Page.
Closely related to cookies are "web bugs".
A web bug is a graphic on a web page or in an email message
that is designed to monitor who is reading it.
The graphic is often invisible.
See the Privacy Foundation's
Web Bug FAQ.
To protect an individual person's email
address from receiving harassing email, post a generic contact address
such as "webmaster". Aside from viewers who might harass an individual
whose address is posted, automated "web crawler" programs search the
Internet to create lists of email addresses associated with websites,
often for targeting unsolicited email messages. See
Protecting your
website's email addresses from being used by spammers.
Related Resources
- OnGuardOnline.gov
provides practical tips from the federal government
and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet
fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information.
- Privacy 2000
Privacy Links & Resources
includes: Advocacy Groups,
Industry Groups, Law & Government, Seals & Certification, Consulting,
Technologies/Standards, Centers/Academics, Reports, and Conferences.
- Information
Gathered by Web Sites Threatens Personal Privacy,
Jane Bryant Quinn
- Internet Privacy Law
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
- Privacy Forum, a moderated discussion group
- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
