It is for this reason that you would hear a lot of talk about online privacy but what exactly is that?

Well, online privacy is the level of privacy protection an individual has while connected to the Internet and it covers the amount of online security available for personal and financial data, communications, and preferences.

You might think it is not as serious until it happens to you but my mother got to experience something like it. In a generation of Facebook usage, her account was breached and there were a lot of things posted that were not decent or anything she would ever post herself.

Unfortunately, she did not know about it until people started messaging her that her posts were not appropriate and hence she started to dig in her feed to find what they were talking about, which she found and then went through the process of how to reverse the whole thing.

At least my sister was able to find a way to delete the posts and though my mom wanted to just give up completely on all things online with a few protection measures in place, she felt assured enough to keep using them.

Now you may wonder, what did those protection measures entail? We did the basic things.

For one, we changed passwords and created stronger ones that were not in use by any other of her socials and she had to keep remembering to log out of her account after using it.

Apart from the measures we took though, there are so many more these days to make sure that using the internet is safe.

So these are a few tips to protect your online privacy, using stronger passwords different for each account you have on different platforms.

Commit to sharing less personal data because the less you share, the safer it is for you.

Check your privacy setting. With many social networks today, you have some options to limit the ways data is collected or used, who can contact you or see your posts which can help to keep your personal data personal.

Limit sharing of location, even though it can help to find your way and such but leaving your location on often can give access to third parties and is often used to tailor ads and recommendations based on locations you have recently visited. So, feel free to deny whenever it is not necessary to turn on your location.

Keep your devices and apps up to date, keeping software current and up to date is the only way to make sure that your device is protected against the latest software vulnerabilities. By enabling automatic updates on your devices, you can be sure that your apps and operating system are always up to date which can be done in any phone settings.

And last but not least, be careful where you keep your passwords and what kind of links you open.