The APDCAT publishes new ‘Data Protection Pills’ with tips to prevent personal data theft on the internet

The Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT) has developed data protection information pills, with useful information to help citizens detect situations of risk that could lead to loss of control of their personal data and manipulation.

Coinciding with the European Day of Data Protection, the director of the APDCAT, M. Àngels Barbarà, recalls the importance of being aware of your own privacy and maintaining control of personal data to avoid harm from both a point from the point of view of personal, economic and labor development, and also of one's own image and reputation.

8 privacy health pills

The document is structured around 8 topics to alert the public to the main existing risks for the loss of control of privacy and to offer recommendations in a direct and clear way. The 8 pills cover the following topics:

· The right to data protection

· Passwords

· Other forms of authentication

· Phishing

· Internet user tracking

· Physical security of mobile phones

· Manipulation of people

· Online shopping

The pills, in detail

Specifically, the document begins by talking about data protection rights and defines what is meant by personal data. It then delves into the creation and management of passwords as a key element in preserving privacy. It details how to make passwords secure, talks about the most common attacks to steal passwords and how to avoid them. It also provides tools and resources to check for lost credentials.

The document then presents other forms of authentication to preserve personal data, such as multi-factor identification systems and biometric identification. The fourth pill is phishing, one of the most common scams today. The text presents several recommendations to avoid falling into scams, by following SMS links, or even numbers with extra charges, which have become a common form of scam. Among them, alert of those started by 803, 806, 807 and 905, and SMS to short numbers starting with 2, 3, 79 and 99. Also remember that SMS started in 79 are especially dangerous, as they are subscription services and will be charged for each message received.

The document then warns of the monitoring that companies and organizations can do on the person using Internet services with the use of cookies, fingerprint, IP and DNS, and is committed to using anonymous browsing, still which he does not recognize is not an infallible technique. It also provides tips for maintaining the physical security of mobile devices, and resources for locating and managing them remotely in the event of a loss.

The paper also addresses the risks of manipulating people with big data, artificial intelligence, and profiles with automated data processing, as well as bubble filtering, fake news, and deep fake. ).

Finally, the text talks about the specific risks of online shopping, and recommends shopping in trusted stores, taking care of the security of the data provided and the security of equipment and communications.