If you have Googled yourself recently,
you my have been surprised how much of your personal information is
online without your consent. While we have control over what we put
on the internet such as pictures, videos, and our personal opinions,
we do not have control over everything that is out there including
public records.
There are many websites these days that
specialize in gathering all your public information and publishing it
online. This included things such as your current address, previous
address, family members, age, phone number, email address, car you
drive, and more. Even if you are careful about not putting your
personal information out there, it can still be found and published
on these sites.
If you find your information on one of
these sites and you don't want it on there, sometimes they have an
option to opt-out or submit a request to have it removed. However,
this is usually not very easy and requires some effort to find. Often
the websites will tease an option to have it removed and then bring
you to a payment page where they say you have to pay them to have
your information removed from their website. This tactic seems like
blackmail, trying to get money from people who never wanted their
privacy compromised in the first place.
These website say they get their
information from public records that are available to everyone. This
may be the case, but these website are digging up people's personal
information and making it even more easily available online for their
own profit. I believe there needs to be more regulations put in place
to protect people against this sort of thing.
It can be a matter of personal safety.
For example if someone knows your name and they have a general idea
of where you are from, it is pretty easy for them to do a quick
search and find exactly where you live. They can find out more of
your personal information such as who is related to you and where
they live.
As of now there does not seem to be
much attention being given to this subject of privacy. In the age we
are living in now with technology, there are certainly a lot of
benefits, but we are also sacrificing our privacy as a result. The
simple act of owning a smart phone means giving up a lot of privacy.
By carrying around a phone pretty much everything is documented from
where you are, to who you contact, to what you look up.
Some say in these times, we can no
longer expect privacy and we just have to embrace it and put
ourselves out there. Personally I still think privacy is important
and we have to make sure it does not get compromised.
I recommend doing a search on yourself
by name and location to see which websites are publishing your
personal information. If you care about privacy, you may want to
contact some of the websites that pop up and request that your
personal information be removed.
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