VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Recent surveys show most people don't change their default privacy settings on Facebook.
BC's Minister of Citizens' Services
Margaret MacDiarmid says the amount of personal information that you make available online is something the provincial government wants you to think about this International Data Privacy Day (Jan. 28).
"Each of us, individually, can use social media," she says. "We can go online to order plane tickets or whatever we want to do, and we often give a lot of private information about ourselves without realizing how it might be used."
She says it's important to be aware that your personal data might be passed on to other companies and organizations.
"You want to give the minimum amount of information," she explains, "and quite often when you're filling in these forms online, there will be an asterisk [*] that will be a mandatory field, but other things, like your birthday and so on, quite often aren't mandatory, so just don't fill in those blanks."
Other quick tips for using social media:
• Personal boundaries are just that – personal. Protect the personal privacy of others by not posting their information, including their name, address, photo, phone number or anything else about them.
• Think of your password-recovery questions. Information commonly used to recover a password should be kept private. This includes your mother’s maiden name, your pet’s name, your favourite books and movies or the street you grew up on.
• Personal details are not necessary to communicate personal experience. Be general when appropriate (in a forum) and detailed when necessary (in a private message).
• Carefully go through your privacy settings and adjust the settings to protect your personal information. Social media sites often update privacy settings so make it a habit to regularly review your profile.
For more information about how citizens, organizations and public bodies can protect information and data security, please visit the
Office of the Chief Information Officer.