{"id":14684,"date":"2018-10-29T07:44:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T11:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=14684"},"modified":"2022-05-05T08:25:47","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T07:25:47","slug":"privacy-audit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/privacy-audit\/14684\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy audit: Find out what the Internet knows about you"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Privacy is such a fickle concept \u2014 and doubly so, online. Many of us are quite happy to share what we ate for dinner (Instagram), where we\u2019re going on holiday (Facebook), when we got a promotion (LinkedIn), or even how we feel about delicate issues (Twitter). Conversely, we go to the ends of the earth to protect and insure our physical possessions; to fend off any dangers or insecurities that might befall our beloved TV, car, or iPhone.<\/p>\n

Yet, when discussing the prospect of merging the two \u2014 the idea of protecting our digital property and identity \u2014 most of us willingly remain in the dark.<\/p>\n

A new era of online privacy<\/h2>\n

At least, many were happy not to think about our privacy until earlier this year, when the advent of the EU General Data Protection Regulation forced us to contemplate the issue. From having no concept \u2014 or potentially care \u2014 about how or where our digital data was being stored, we were suddenly encouraged to track it down and eliminate it.<\/p>\n

The issue is real. In the past few weeks alone, as many as 50 million Facebook accounts were endangered as part of its latest data breach<\/a>. Its latest! And that\u2019s in a domain where people actively cast their privacy aside.<\/p>\n

The scarier prospect is what scammers and hackers can do with your data<\/a>. The more severe consequences include financial theft, involvement in malicious ad campaigns, and even stolen identities.<\/p>\n

What if your digital footprint is not just leaving clues about who you are, but virtually encouraging fraudsters and criminals to walk right into your life? Well, the world is waking up from its collective ignorance \u2014 but where to start?<\/p>\n

Start with privacyaudit.me<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s all well and good to start taking an interest in personal privacy. A run through the privacy settings of your social accounts won\u2019t take long. And then the apps: Uber, Netflix, Amazon. Ah yes, other stores too \u2014 everywhere you\u2019ve ever shopped. Everywhere you\u2019ve ever gamed, procrastinated, banked, downloaded music, dated\u2026this is getting tough.<\/p>\n

The seemingly impossible task of regaining control over our own online security is now vital, though, and so Kaspersky Lab\u2019s incubator came up with the Privacy Audit<\/a> Web service. It\u2019s a smart advocate, and it\u2019s incredibly easy to use.<\/p>\n

\"Launching<\/a>

Launching an audit through the Privacy Audit\u2019s neat console<\/p><\/div>\n

Launched first for the UK, the Privacy Audit discovers exactly what\u2019s out there about its users.<\/p>\n

The audit is actually quite cathartic. Honest.<\/p>\n

Click Launch new audit<\/em> and enter a few simple details, and the automated console becomes a one-stop shop for managing your personal data and learning about the websites and resources that hold your data \u2014 and their degree of personal privacy.<\/p>\n

The Privacy Audit scans an extensive list of indexed online sources, analyzes the relevant ones, and returns the required information over the course of 24 hours. Users can track the progress of the audit using a progress bar on the console.<\/p>\n

\"Did<\/a>

Did you know that your date of birth, address, e-mail and other things that are supposed to be private can actually be found in the public domain?<\/p><\/div>\n

The ugly truth: The Internet just knows too much about you<\/h2>\n

You can\u2019t escape the truth, and the Privacy Audit shows you your true digital footprint \u2014 warts and all.<\/p>\n

Seeing it can be a shock initially, but ultimately, to protect yourself from scammers and hackers, you need to know what others can see about you, your identity, and your assets.<\/p>\n

The Privacy Audit\u2019s results are impressively accurate. It finds and dissects each user\u2019s data, and if it\u2019s unsure, it\u2019ll ask you to validate whether data is about you or not. Its algorithms also counteract challenges such as namesakes and spelling errors; and, most important given its function, it operates with complete respect for people\u2019s privacy and never collects personal data.<\/p>\n

Once that mirror\u2019s been held up, users have 15 days to analyze the information before \u2014 of course \u2014 choosing whether to save or delete the report.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The ugly truth: A user\u2019s digital footprint empowers them to do something about how much of their information is out there<\/p><\/div>\n

Taking the data back<\/h2>\n

We live in a world where data leaks happen on a daily basis. Because of that, it\u2019s a good idea to minimize the amount of your personal data that all these web services store by requesting to delete it. This will be the next feature of Privacy Audit: the services will generate automatic responses to companies for users\u2019 data deletion.<\/p>\n

Privacy Audit is the brainchild of the Business Incubator team at Kaspersky Lab, which chose the UK for such a solution because of its role as the nucleus of the global English-speaking community; its strict personal data protection regulations; the population\u2019s concern over privacy; and, finally, the reason for such concerns: the high-profile personal data leaks that have occurred in the country in recent years.<\/p>\n

Citing September\u2019s British Airways hack as a prime example \u2014 as many as 380,000 payments were implicated in this breach<\/a> \u2014 the team\u2019s mission is to help people maintain privacy in the modern tech-based world, and to fight the uncontrolled spread of users\u2019 personal data across the Web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s safe to assume the Internet knows a lot about you. But how can you find out what it is? Thanks to Privacy Audit, now it\u2019s easy to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2706,"featured_media":14698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1622],"tags":[1802,363,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-14684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-privacy","8":"tag-gdpr","9":"tag-personal-data","10":"tag-privacy"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/privacy-audit\/14684\/"},{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/privacy-audit\/24415\/"},{"hreflang":"pl","url":"https:\/\/plblog.kaspersky.com\/privacy-audit\/9983\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/privacy\/","name":"privacy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14684"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24387,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14684\/revisions\/24387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}