8 February 2002

Source: Tim Dixon, Australian Privacy Foundation

1. Know the value of your personal information Your privacy matters. Take care in what personal information you give out online. Always ask yourself, why does this organisation need to know this information? Is it really necessary? For example, do they really need to know your income, the size of your family, or other personal information? Remember that once the information is released on the Internet, it might be exchanged between many businesses and it will no longer be under your control.

2. Read the privacy policies and privacy notices Most Australian Web site operators now provide a statement about how they use personal information, and whether they will send you e-mails in the future. If you are concerned about how the Web site you are dealing with is going to use the information you provide, have a look at the privacy policy. It should explain its privacy practices – and you can then decide whether you are comfortable with giving them your personal information.

3. Choose carefully When you buy a product or register for something on a Web site, you will often be given a choice to tick or un-tick a box asking you whether you want to receive e-mail from that organisation or from other organisations in the future. Pay attention to these boxes, and choose carefully! Often Web sites will have a pre-ticked box saying “Yes” to getting e-mail marketing in the future. You may need to remove the tick if you do not want to receive spam. Sometimes you will have a few different choices about what kind of mailing subscriptions you want to receive.

4. Don’t make your personal e-mail address public If you are posting messages to USEnet, mailing lists or IRC, you should not use your personal e-mail address – you could find yourself receiving a lot of unwanted contact in the future. Use a different e-mail address, or don’t disclose your e-mail address at all.

5. What about if I am receiving spam? If you are receiving spam from a reputable organisation, you can contact them directly or follow instructions (normally at the bottom of their e-mail or on their privacy policy) to tell them that you want to be removed from their mailing list. If that does not work, if they are an Australian organisation you can complain to them or if that is not successful, to the Privacy Commissioner. If you are receiving spam from fake e-mail addresses (generally out of the United States), it won’t help to e-mail them back to tell them that you want to unsubscribe – in fact, that will often make things worse because it proves that your address is “live”. The only way to stop this kind of e-mail will be to change your e-mail address and avoid giving out your personal e-mail address in the future.

6. Keep credit card information secure Only make credit card payments on secure Internet sites. They are indicated on most Web browsers by a padlock at the bottom of the browser window. This means that they encrypt your credit card numbers when they are in transmission to the company. (This does not protect those credit card numbers once they have actually arrived at the company – that’s a separate issue).

7. Use alternative e-mail addresses If you use the Internet a lot, and you give out your e-mail address because you want to have some kinds of information sent to you, you might just have to put up with getting some spam. A good way of managing this is to have two or more e-mail addresses. One can be for your important, personal communications with friends or for work. The other can be the one that you give out on Web sites and to businesses. That way, if those businesses start forwarding your e-mail address to other businesses and you start getting a lot of spam, you can still keep this separate from the important personal e-mail you receive.

8. Use a different name If you are not comfortable disclosing your own name on a Web site, use another name – a pseudonym (as long as it is legal, of course – you should not misrepresent yourself in commercial transactions, and obviously you should not do anything illegal whether using your own name or someone else’s). Most of the time, Web site operators don’t really need your name. Some even encourage the option of the pseudonym – for example, ninemsn’s membership system encourages people to join using a different name if that makes a person feel more comfortable when using the Internet.

9. Exercise your rights The Privacy Act was recently extended to cover most Australian businesses. You have new rights under the Privacy Act: from now, when businesses collect personal information from you, they should generally seek your consent before they start sending you direct marketing material. And if they don’t, you can tell them to stop sending you material – and they should respect that wish. Under the Privacy Act, you also have a right to find out what information organisations hold concerning you. You should contact the organisation directly, and tell them that you are exercising your right under National Privacy Principle 6 to see or obtain a copy of the personal information they have concerning you. (In some cases they may try to impose a charge – this is allowed, but it must be reasonable, and they can only apply the charge once they have told you how much it will cost and you have approved them going ahead with the search for your information.) If you have a problem, you should make a complaint to the company or contact the Privacy Commissioner’s office to make a complaint on 1300 363 992, e-mail to or at the Privacy Commissioner’s Web site – http://www.privacy.gov.au

10. Avoid identity fraud Take steps to avoid someone ripping off your identity by using information about you so that they can pretend to be you, and can open accounts and make purchases in your name. You can minimise this risk by taking care with who you disclose your personal information to. If you make credit card purchases online, only use one credit card for them, and make sure it is a card with a small credit limit so that the risk of misuse is minimised.

http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/stories/866.asp