What Can You Do to Help Protect Your Privacy and Personal Data?

These days, we seem to be spending more and more time online and there is a growing awareness about protecting privacy and personal data when it comes to the internet.  As Everything Dinosaur’s plans to comply with the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)* progress, we thought it would be helpful to our customers and to visitors of our various websites to provide some tips about how individuals can help to keep their personal data safe and secure.  After all, if Everything Dinosaur is working hard to safeguard your personal data, it only makes sense to do what you can to help maintain your privacy and personal security too.

Keeping Safe Online – Protecting Your Privacy and Personal Data

Here is a list of some things to consider to help stay safe online and to enjoy your browsing experience.  It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but we hope it provides additional support and assistance.

Protecting Personal Data – Tips

• Have strong and safe passwords.  Remember to keep them private and change them periodically.  Passwords to more sensitive information such as financial details should be changed more frequently.  Never disclose your passwords, anybody who knows your password may access your personal data/accounts.
• When using a device in a public place, it is recommended that you always log out and close the website browser when you have finished online.   Be careful, somebody might be watching you, ensure that as you type in or access sensitive information, you are not being overlooked.
• Avoid using the same password for multiple accounts.
• When creating a password, use a minimum of seven characters.  Never use words, email addresses or any other aspect of your personal data within your password.  Letter, figure and symbol-based passwords are best.  When Everything Dinosaur upgraded its websites, existing account holders were asked to change their passwords and new stronger password creation measures were put in place.  A few moments of inconvenience are more than made up for by knowing that your personal data is protected and more secure.
• Everything Dinosaur will never ask you to confirm any bank account or credit/debit card details or other financial information via email.  If you receive an email claiming to be from an organisation asking you to do so, treat this with great caution.  It is often best to ignore it and not to respond.  Do not click on any links within such emails.
• Look for the padlock…  Look for HTTPS – all Everything Dinosaur’s sites are safeguarded by HTTPS protocols

The Green Padlock and HTTPS Helps to Give Web Browsers Confidence and Builds Trust

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

• Beware of websites offering discount codes or vouchers for Everything Dinosaur’s products and services.  Our company philosophy is very simple, we try to offer the very best service we can at the cheapest possible prices.  If you come across a website claiming to offer discount or voucher codes for Everything Dinosaur, we would urge you to take caution.  You can always contact Everything Dinosaur to check, we have included our contact email details within this blog post.
• When on a social networking platform, think about how to keep your personal data safe.  Check and adjust the site’s privacy controls if necessary, use strong passwords and secure logins, consider the amount of personal information that you post up, could this data put you at risk from identify theft/fraud?
• Make sure that your computer has an effective firewall and appropriate anti-virus/spy-ware/anti-malware programmes in place.  Only download files from trusted sources.
• Before you give out any personal information online, make sure you know who you are dealing with.
• Check the email address carefully before opening the message, don’t click on any links or attachments unless you are sure of the sender’s identity.
• Ensure any mobile devices are kept secure, use passwords and secondary security systems such as thumb print identity checks.  Make sure your operating system has the latest updates and do not delay the installation of updates.

Everything Dinosaur Contact Details

If you have a query regarding Everything Dinosaur’s privacy policy, a question relating to the company’s policies helping to protect your personal data and privacy or if you have come across a website claiming to offer discount codes and vouchers for Everything Dinosaur’s goods and services, you can email us here: Email Everything Dinosaur.

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR is the European Union’s binding legislation for the protection of personal data. This regulation will be in effect from the 25th May 2018 onwards, it has been designed to deal with the inconsistencies within the current data protection laws that exist throughout the European Union.  It aims to facilitate the secure, free-flow of data and provide enhanced protection for data subjects (individuals whose data is managed, processed, handled, stored and so forth).

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), is the protocol where encrypted HTTP data is transferred over a secure connection.  Everything Dinosaur’s websites have digital certificates that authenticates the identity of our websites and encrypts information sent to servers.  Encryption involves the scrambling of data into an undecipherable string that can only be returned to a readable format with the proper decryption key, this helps to protect the privacy and integrity of exchanged data.  This helps to ensure that any personal data collected is held more securely.

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