Khaberni - Experts have revealed practical steps for erasing a digital footprint and protecting privacy on the internet, helping users gain control over their personal data and prevent tracking of their activities.
The well-known account in the field of artificial intelligence and technology, Patrick’s AIBuzzNews, shared a series of posts titled: "I deleted all my digital fingerprints.. You can do it too", which garnered hundreds of thousands of views, and displayed clear and simple steps to erase digital activity.
Erasing Digital Footprints
The first step begins with erasing recorded activities on Google services by visiting myactivity.google.com and logging into the account, where the user can view all past actions on Google services, from Maps, YouTube, Image Search, and videos.
To delete this data, the user selects "Delete activity by" and specifies the desired time period, whether the last hour, today, or all time, with the option to choose the apps or products whose data they want to erase.
Hiding Future Activity
For increased privacy, it is advisable to stop saving browsing, search, location, and YouTube history through the "Activity Controls" section, which prevents Google from tracking any future activities, making the user nearly "invisible" within the Google ecosystem.
Maintaining Privacy Continuously
After erasing old data, it is advised to prevent the recording of new data via the account settings in the "Data and Privacy" section, and to stop all activity tracking options, which ensures that the use of apps and sites and YouTube history is not recorded in the background.
Automating Privacy
To avoid manually repeating these steps, the auto-delete feature can be activated via myactivity.google.com/auto-delete, and choose to automatically delete activities older than 3, 18, or 36 months, which maintains the cleanliness of the account continually without user intervention.
Securing the Internet Connection
Patrick recommends using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with a privacy-focused browser or search engine such as DuckDuckGo, Tor, or Firefox with privacy settings activated, and changing passwords every three to six months, to ensure security and protect accounts from hacking.
