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If, on the one hand, there are those who love it and are even able to pay for the exposure that the Internet is able to provide, this is not everyone’s behavior or desire.
There are people – and they are not few – who want to go the other way and, if possible, remove their personal information from the entire Internet.
For those who don’t think so, it may seem strange to want to be a “stranger” in the virtual world, but there are a good set of reasons for this. Whatever your case, know that it’s possible and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
What is the problem with personal information on the Internet?
If, on the one hand, there are people who say things like “my life is an open book” or “I have nothing to hide from anyone”, on the other hand, there are many people who have realized that even the lowest levels of exposure do not represent just one problem, but several and sometimes with direct and indirect consequences, more or less severe.
Some of these only realized the importance of the issue, when it was too late to take action or change their attitude.
This awareness of how serious the situation can be, has only increased and that is proven in a NordVPN researchin which 17% of Brazilians say they would delete their entire online presence if they could, 76% are afraid that their financial information will be accessed by hackers and 46% are afraid that their information on social media will be seen by third parties.
1. Privacy
Assurance existed well before the world wide web. It is on your behalf that you decide who to share information with, who participates in a meeting, who to reveal a secret to or keep it just for you, or even whether or not to allow a stranger to know your name.
Finally, it is a fundamental right, so much so that it appears in the article 5 of the Federal Constitution.
It is because of this universal concept that privacy on the Internet has been a matter of concern at a global level and has given rise to legislation such as the GDPR of the European Union and the LGPD in Brazil.
2. Physical security
There are many cases of crimes that became famous, as well as others that only entered the statistics, in which criminals could kidnap a person or commit a robbery or even other types of crimes, just because they had access to information on the Internet, the which revealed customs and habits of the victims.
Most of the time, this information can be obtained directly from social networks, when “motivated” by the indiscriminate behavior of exposure, these same victims feed the platforms with photos, videos and textual information of everything they do, not to mention the metadata that these media contains.
But it’s not just under these circumstances. Even the most discreet and reserved ones often have their data and information exposed, without even knowing it.
3. Financial security
Financial consequences are also common. Whether in the real example above of kidnapping, or in the virtual frauds that make use of data from each of us circulating on the network.
It could be because of a data leak, but it could also be because your email was included in a database used in phishing and which you ended up falling into.
4. Data security
The very security of the information you have on the devices you use (laptop, smartphone, etc.), or the websites you eventually manage, can be affected to some extent, after all, you could be the target of an attack, an invasion, ransomware or other types of digital threats.
Never forget that the less visible you are, the less susceptible you will be.
5. Career / professional life
Your career and your professional life to some extent may also be impacted.
It is not new that companies and Human Resources professionals resort to the Web to obtain information that people often do not reveal in a selection process, for example.
A joke or a post on a social network can have a decisive influence, especially in a negative way.
6. Past
Not everyone can say they’re proud of everything they’ve done in the past.
People change their behaviors, change their minds and even incorporate new values.
But on the Internet, what you did a few years ago, may still be recorded there and it may be an opinion in a discussion forum, or even a legal process for which you responded and that even having had a favorable decision, sometimes it doesn’t show everything that happened.
7. Free services and content
The “free” content on the Internet was one of the factors that leveraged its development and it is still the case today.
Many people understand and accept that there is a price to pay for this alleged gratuity, giving personal data in exchange for commercial exploitation, in the form of online advertising and other actions that are not always transparent and whose consequences can be the most diverse.
This is the case of many companies in the sector, which prospered and literally made a fortune and acquired immense power, which is the basis of the dictatorship of big techs.
It is estimated that companies like Google have an average of 1.5 million different data from each active internet user on the world wide web!
Or also the thousands of companies whose business is to collect, organize and market people’s data, the so-called data brokers. They use various mechanisms, such as web scraping (data scraping), or simply offer and exchange data with each other, with frequent exchange and buying and selling of information between them.
It is also not uncommon for data brokers to simply obtain information from companies that Internet users simply register to make an “innocent online purchase” or from different databases that are not public.
Lack of ethics? Absolutely, but there aren’t many scruples when profit speaks louder!
Many people even claim that some of the main data brokers get a lot of information on the Dark Web, coming from data leaks. Don’t scare and don’t even surprise that it’s true!
8. Artificial intelligence
And if all we’ve seen isn’t enough, there’s artificial intelligence.
The advancement of AIs and the lately demonstrated potential to affect the results obtained, only makes us certain that both the efficiency in collecting personal information must be greatly amplified, as well as the means for obtaining it.
With artificial intelligence, the raw data (raw data) and the related ones, will serve for deductions and prediction of many aspects and in a much bigger speed.
How do I remove my personal information?
Once you have understood how serious it can be to have your personal information on the net, even if not all of it appears in a Google search or in the “New” Bing, as in the case of data brokers, your concern should be to know what what is possible to do to put an end to this real spree with your personal data, right?
Before resorting to some specialized removal services, you need to keep in mind that 100% efficiency cannot be guaranteed, or indeed any degree. After all, we are dealing with third parties.
Another important point is the active role that the user himself must have, first avoiding as much as possible to give his information, such as the traces that we leave without realizing it and that we discussed in the article on the “digital footprints that we leave on the Internet” (digital footprints).
The third consideration in this regard is that most of the services are paid and are foreign companies, which often only have the English version on their websites. However, it must be remembered that the “collectors” of the data are also mostly located in the same places as these service providers.
Last but not least, like any other service, before the hypothetical adhesion, one must observe what each one promises, because in the preliminary evaluation we made, there are those who guarantee the removal of “only” the 100 largest data brokers and there are those who guarantee hundreds of them. In addition, there are variations in plans and the type of data covered, and it is important to pay attention to this type of detail.
In addition to the above list, it is also possible remove some personal information that Google has about you that appear in search results.
Read carefully and follow what is on the page.
Conclusion
For those who understand the seriousness and risks associated with having personal information on the Internet, there are precautions and tools to help remove it.
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