5 tips to protect your privacy online

The online world offers tremendous convenience but also carries risks for privacy. Your clicks, interactions, and website visits leave data trails that often include your personal information. Your personal data could be used by organizations, businesses or even cyber criminals for many different reasons. Learn what you can do to protect your privacy online.

On this page

• Share with caution
• Know how to identify and avoid online scams
• Reduce online tracking by marketers and advertisers
• Use multi-factor authentication
• Delete your personal information

1. Share with caution

• Be careful when you share your personal information like your full name and address as well as unique or sensitive personal details.
• Avoid sharing this kind of information on social media, since bad actors could use it to answer your security questions and take over your accounts.
• Never share your Social Insurance Number (SIN) online. Your SIN can be used to steal your identity or commit fraud. Learn how your SIN is an important key to your identity.

2. Know how to identify and avoid online scams

• Look out for online scams that try to get you to provide personal data, such as your credit card details, for fraud.
• Many scams are spread through email, text or messenger apps.
• Never click on any link sent to you that you do not recognize, especially if it asks you to update your password or provide personal information.
  • If you think it is a valid request, always go to the application, website, or organization directly to change your password, complete forms or conduct a transaction.
  • Be careful – Some links can lead to counterfeit websites that look like the real thing but are used by bad actors to steal your personal information.
• Visit the Get Cyber Safe website to learn how to recognize online scams and keep yourself safe online by making cyber security a part of your online life.

3. Reduce online tracking by marketers and advertisers

• You can reduce how much you are tracked online by adjusting your privacy settings.
  • For example, you can turn off or restrict your location settings within the apps that you use so that you only share your location with apps that require it to function.
  • You can do the same for your tablet or mobile phone.
• You can change your web browser’s privacy settings to reduce tracking.
• Consider taking advantage of preventative security tools that can block online tracking and reduce the risk of a phishing attack.

4. Use multi-factor authentication

• Multi-factor authentication means that you need more than one identifying factor to gain access to an account.
• Other ways to identify yourself in addition to entering a password, passphrase or PIN include:
  • requesting a phone call to a landline
  • using an authenticator app on your smart phone or tablet
  • using a hardware token, like an electronic key fob
  • using a biometric trait, like a fingerprint
• Common options for multi-factor authentication are to receive an SMS text message, verification PIN or phone call on your mobile device.

Note: Although there are risks, setting up any type of multi-factor authentication, including SMS text or a phone call on your mobile device, is a highly effective protective measure and better than not having it at all.

5. Delete your personal information

• When you delete an online account that you no longer need, be sure that the business providing the service also deletes your personal information. This reduces the risk that your information will be exposed in a data breach.
• When you delete apps from mobile devices, make sure that you close your account first.
  • Deactivating an account means your personal information is no longer public, for instance on social media, but it does not delete it from the provider’s database.