How to maintain your privacy online? – Quiz

1.  Read the text and answer the questions.  

1. According to the article, what personal details could be on your social media?
Your relationship status, age, address, details of connections and holiday photos may be on your social media.

2. True or false? Many social media sites have default settings which allow strangers to see everything.
True. Privacy settings on many social media platforms allow everyone to see everything.

3. Why should you avoid putting passwords on document-sharing sites?
Because you might accidentally share the information with someone.

4. What do digital cookies do?
Cookies are designed to improve your browsing experience by tracking and saving information about your visits to a site, helping to personalize your sessions.

5. What steps can you take if you’re not comfortable with cookies?
You can delete your browsing history or use an app to block them.

2.  Choose the appropriate words or phrases to complete the following sentences.

1. Do you have any connections inside the company we can talk to about our new product?

2. The onus is on the employees to make sure their work is correct.

3. I don’t ask my colleagues how much money they make. It’s too personal .

4. I love your holiday snaps . You look so happy in them.

5. You need to block users who write offensive comments. 

How to maintain your privacy online? 

Some of us like to keep some things private – maybe we don’t want people knowing about our relationship status, our age or where we live – because these details are personal. The problem is, everywhere we go online, we seem to leave a digital footprint.

On our social media accounts, we often display things like our opinions, connections and holiday snaps. The issue is, how do we stop everybody seeing everything? Maybe we don’t want a random stranger knowing our favourite type of coffee. And cookies – there was a time they were just something nice to eat. Now they seem to be popping up on websites. So how can you stay more private?

There are some steps you can take. First, on your social media accounts, check your privacy settings. Many social media platforms allow everything to be visible by default, and the onus is on you to set your boundaries. And limiting the amount you share isn’t only confined to social media. There are many sites out there that help you to share documents – so a good tip may be to not put anything too private, like passwords, on there. One errant click may send it to the wrong person.

Finally, cookies are designed to improve your browsing experience by tracking and saving information about your visits to a site, helping to personalise your sessions. Deleting your browsing history may help, but there are certain apps which can block them if you don’t feel comfortable.

So, if you want to maintain your privacy online, maybe only share things you’d be happy with a stranger seeing – and if you don’t feel comfortable with cookies, you might decide to invest in some tech to block them. If that’s not enough, just don’t accept them and visit another site – and why not have a yummy cookie to eat instead?