Data Privacy Day is an international effort, held annually on
January 28 to generate awareness on the importance of privacy
and empower individuals to protect their personal information. The
day puts a focus on respecting privacy, safeguarding data and
While you should constantly be in control of your digital
footprint and take precautions to protect your privacy on a daily
basis, UB's Information Security Office seeks to reinforce these
practices by calling attention to Data Privacy Day. We encourage
you to follow the tips below to properly safeguard your personal
- Use long and complex passwords or passphrases. These are
often the first line of defense in protecting an online account.
The length and complexity of your passwords can provide an extra
level of protection for your personal information.
- Take care what you share. Periodically check the privacy
settings for your social networking apps to ensure that they are
set to share only what you want with whom you intend. Be very
careful about putting personal information online. What goes on the
Internet usually stays on the Internet.
- Go stealth when browsing. Your browser can store quite a
bit of information about your online activities, including cookies,
cached pages, and history. To ensure the privacy of personal
information online, limit access by going "incognito" and using the
browser's private mode.
- Using Wi-Fi? If only public, unencrypted Wi-Fi is
available, restrict your activity to simple searches (no banking,
for example) or use a VPN (virtual private network). The latter
provides an encrypted tunnel between you and the websites you
visit. Remember, UB
Secure and eduroam are UB’s encrypted network and
therefore safe to use.
- Should you trust that app? Only use apps from reputable
sources. Check out reviews or other trusted sources before
downloading anything that is unfamiliar.