Technology can be scary at times. In fact, I simply don’t trust it with anything. I’m not into conspiracy theories and don’t think the world’s going to end. I simply don’t trust that technology is a safe alternative to good old fashioned paper and pen.
If technology could be trusted 100% of the time with our most secret of secrets then websites like Wikileaks wouldn’t exist. Our data would be safely stored away under technology’s lock and key and nobody would have access. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen so I’m going to give you five things to keep off your connected devices.
First of all, if it’s personal information you wouldn’t share with a stranger it shouldn’t be stored on a connected device. Social Security, credit card and any other numbers that tell someone more about you than your name. Don’t store them digitally.
Really personal pictures shouldn’t be kept on your devices. I know it’s fun to send selfies (and even more fun to receive them), but think about what happens if your phone or laptop is lost or stolen. Ripping data from hard drives or storage devices is easier than you can imagine.
Medical information shouldn’t be stored electronically. Medical professionals pay huge amounts of money to store records safely on equipment that is HIPAA compliant. Your tablet is not a safe place to store personal medical records.
If you do your taxes on your computer then storing data there is inevitable. But, keep the files on your computer for as short a time as possible until your taxes are filed. Once they’re filed move them to a storage drive and delete the files from your computer.
Passwords are arguably the worst pieces of information anyone could store on connected devices. We all have passwords saved to our favorite sites; it’s time to break that habit and start memorizing passwords. If they were to go public then our personal information wouldn’t be personal anymore.
None of us are important enough to worry about our information being targeted; however, if your device were to end up in the wrong hands, information stored on it could screw you up. Do yourself a favor and move your data to external hard drives keeping it safely offline.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)