Data protection & making the effort

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Published on 28 Nov 2023.

Following "Data Protection Day" on Jan. 28, we asked colleagues here internally what they thought of when they heard "Data Protection. In 2006, the Council of Europe declared January 28 as Data Protection Day. At Kinamo, we thought that 1 day a year to raise awareness of data protection and privacy might be a bit too short. February 1 is also Change Your Password Day. Another holiday to give us a little extra thought to online privacy and our data security.

Our colleague Koen already shared an article in which he gave tips to assess whether a website is safe. He also gave us food for thought about storing our data such as documents and photos in the cloud. We also asked Sophie what she thought of when she heard "Data Protection. She is at Kinamo mainly working on marketing and the development projects.

Privacy and data protection: the worthwhile effort

I do come into contact with issues related to data protection and online privacy more often at Kinamo both for ourselves and for customers. The introduction of GDPR has caused a lot of questions from clients around adding cookie notifications and privacy statements for us as well. So that's why when I heard "data protection," I had to think mainly of GDPR and cookie banners. But also things like social media and strong passwords.

Social media

At the start of my career, social media emerged as a new "channel." I have been fortunate to grow with social media over the years. I harbor a certain love for social media. Not only because it is part of my job but also because it brings us many good things. Think of missing children being found more quickly thanks to spreading information on social media, easier sharing of moments with friends and family members even if you can't always physically visit them, ...

In the beginning, I thought much less about the impact on privacy when using social media. But we are now a few years down the road and our data is being used actively and abusively, there are data breaches and more people with not so good intentions are also watching. So I've come back from the idea that I shouldn't be concerned with my privacy on social media because I have nothing to hide anyway. I still have nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean I want to share everything with just anyone.

By now, most of us know how to set privacy settings for our accounts and posts. Choose what you share and with whom! But just like a car needs maintenance, it's best to do regular maintenance on the data you share for social media accounts as well.

Facebook is under more and more pressure and is also trying to offer its users more transparency around the data they have and what they do with it. To this end, Facebook launched a tool a while back that allows you to easily consult all your activities on the social network.

Fb your information

At the bottom of that page, in the "information about you" section, you can also find out what Facebook and advertisers know about you and what they do with your data.

Fb interesses 2

For example, during one of my "maintenance of my data on social media," I found out that Facebook thinks certain political parties would be among my interests. Not so!

Screenshot 20200128 204934 Facebook 1 1024x743

Facebook's explanation is "that I may have posted somewhere at one time or another on a page linked to that interest." It would have been helpful if they had included a link to the incident in question.

So it is for states like this that I do these "maintenance checks of my data on social media. Following that, I also thoroughly checked my interests as well as the data I had on Facebook and deleted or modified where necessary. It motivates me to be even more careful in the future. Social media are very accessible and in easy use but that doesn't mean we shouldn't dwell on what we do with it. And I think sometimes we forget - just because it's all made so user-friendly - to stop and think about what's happening with our data.

Do you do the occasional vetting of your data on social media?

Keeping your data safe online takes an effort but keeps us healthy just like going to the dentist regularly. If after reading this blog post you have any questions about your company's social media presence, be sure to let us know!

Kinamo

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