Privacy, Data Protection

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Safeguarding our Privacy and ensuring Data ProtectionAmanda (age 17, Germany)

In our globalized world, a lot of our information is on the internet. If we post something, we don’t always think about what will happen to this information or if it should be on the Internet. We don’t think about if our information is protected or not. We just trust companies and web pages to keep our information safe.

The other problem arises when we realize that we shouldn’t have posted that picture or have written that comment, but now we can't really delete it. If, for example, we post where we live or other personal information it never gets deleted, because once it's on the Internet it stays there forever.

The most important way to keep our information safe, is to carefully read the terms and conditions of any website or app we are using, and to really think about what personal information we want to give away and where we are giving this information to. We shouldn’t just share everything. This is the best and most safe way to keep our personal data safe and to control what information about us is on the Internet and who can have access to it.

Furthermore, we should protect our data by not just trysting any website or company. If a website or an app asks for our personal information, we should think about what company is behind the website or app and for what reason we are asked to provide what kind of personal data: does the site or app really need to know where I live or what I like? Does it really need my phone number or email address to provide me its specific service? Does it need to know my geolocation? And, are there clear statements on how my personal information is handled, respecting the new General Data Protection Regulation? If we check the above before we do anything with our data, there is a very good chance our data will be safe.