Tag Archive for: PII

Protect your PII this National Data Privacy Day |


National Data Privacy Day is Thursday, Jan. 28, making it the perfect time to resolve to take extra precautions to secure your personally identifiable information (PII). We all share large amounts of information when we use the internet. Our devices communicate with us – and with each other – for ease of shopping, banking, travel arrangements, and keeping in touch with friends. BBB reminds consumers to keep data safe from scams, fraud and identity theft.

Quite a bit of information is already shared online via various devices,” said Mechele Agbayani Mills, President and CEO of BBB Serving Central East Texas. “That’s why whenever you’re online, it’s important to safeguard your information to help avoid scams, fraud, and identity theft.”

The Better Business Bureau and the National Cyber Security Alliance offer the following tips to help secure the privacy of critical information:

Share with care. What you post can last a lifetime, so think about who will see your posts and photos, how they will be perceived, and what information they reveal about you.

Own your online presence. Set the privacy and security settings on web services and devices to your comfort level for information sharing. Remember, it’s OK to limit how and with whom you share information.

Value your personal information. Think of your personal information like money: value and protect it. Be careful what sites you visit and be sure you are on a legitimate site before entering personal information. Be especially wary of communications that implore you to act immediately, offer something that sounds too good to be true, or ask for personal information.

Make your passwords long and strong. Use long passwords with a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols – eight characters for most accounts, 12 characters for email and financial accounts. Don’t use the same password for multiple accounts, especially email and financial. Keep a paper list of your passwords in a safe place, not on or near your computer. Consider using a password vault application.

Lock down your login. For your online accounts, use the strongest authentication tools available. Your…

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