Recognizing Safer Internet Day 2014 with One Good Thing

Today is Safer Internet Day! Occurring on the second Tuesday of February each year, the event is an awareness-raising campaign started in Europe more than a decade ago and is now celebrated by more than 100 countries. Coordinated by ConnectSafely.org, the event aims to celebrate positive practices in digital media and technology and grow public awareness that a safer, better Internet depends on all of us. In honor of today’s event, we reached out to members of our team of compliance experts and asked them about “one good thing” they have done or seen somebody else do to make the Internet a better place or the world a better place with the help of the Internet. Their responses are below. Dana Simberkoff, Senior Vice President of Risk Management and Compliance: In the same way that you protect your identification and credit cards by securing them in your wallet or purse and keeping them properly protected, remember to take the same care with your identification and financial information online. Don’t choose to have Web sites “remember you” unless you are very confident in their privacy and security practices. Do select to use the most protective settings in your Web browser of choice. While you may have to fill out online forms more than once-and you won’t have that “special item” suggested and waiting for you when you return to the online shops you frequent-just think what you may find when you look across everything available instead of what someone else chose for you. In general being in control of both your privacy is always better. For consumers, AvePoint provides Compliance Detector, which allows you to “check” the web sites you visit before you share your information with them, to be sure that they are “practicing what they preach” and properly protecting your personal information. Compliance Detector is a free, educational (non-commercial solution) powered by AvePoint Compliance Guardian. Marc Dreyfus, Director of Risk Management and Compliance: Web Browsers and Web Collaborative Applications such as webmail and social media have finally caught on that consumers rank privacy high on their list of must-have features. Now with incognito browsing and enhanced privacy features for applications such as Gmail, LinkedIn, and Facebook, users get to decide for themselves how much of their personal information they share. Although we have a long way to go for personal online privacy, it's a great start. Just remember that these setting are never turned on by default and users much educate themselves on how to enable these critical features. For corporate users, technologies are also aiding in the protection of our personal data. Now applications like AvePoint Compliance Guardian can measure and verify that company policies to protect sensitive personal information are effective. Ralph O’Brien, Senior Compliance Solutions Specialist: Technology has the ability to make the world a safer place, and also the ability to damage.  Like any tool, it is how we use and utilize it that counts. As a school governor, I see the effects of technologies on local communities. In the same week I saw a missing child found due to social networking being used to coordinate the search, and a child nearly abducted due to his picture being publicized online.  I often find myself in a position of education, talking about the risks of e-safety and cyber bullying to the young.  Safer Internet Day for me is an opportunity to reflect on all the benefit technology brings, and how to control the risks in order to enable people to use it with confidence. How about you? What is your “one good thing?” Share with us by leaving a comment below!