Welcome to the Saskatchewan IPC’s blog! Here you’ll find tips, information, instruction, stories, and commentary on what’s going on in our office or in the access and privacy community at large. We also hope to invite guest bloggers to post their thoughts on here too.

So to kick off this blog, here are five ways to protect your privacy:

1. Limit what you post on social networking sites to minimize the likelihood of identity theft/fraud.

Any identifiable information about you could be used to commit identity theft or fraud. Posting your full name, full birth date or any other type of information may provide identity thieves with the information they need to commit identity theft or fraud.

2. Cross-shred or burn documents containing your personal information.

Similar to the above tip, you don’t want any of your personal information in the wrong hands because it can be used for identity theft or fraud.

3. Avoid using public Wi-Fi networks.

Information that you send or receive, such as your username and passwords for email and social networking accounts using public Wi-Fi networks could be intercepted by anyone else on the network.

4. Ask organizations the purpose behind their collection of your personal information.

Also ask how they protect your personal information. Provide only the personal information that is necessary. Once they have our personal information, you are trusting them to protect your information from identity thieves.

5. Use strong passwords.

There are many resources online on how to come up with a strong password, including this one here. Use different strong passwords for different accounts. This is so that if one account is compromised, not all of your accounts are compromised. If memorizing strong passwords become difficult, consider using a password manager that will help manage all your passwords.

Hopefully the above list will help you brainstorm other ways how you might be able to protect your privacy. Stay tuned for more blog entries!