January 26-30, 2026 is Data Privacy Week, an international effort to empower individuals and businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data, and enable trust. LGE Community Credit Union is proud to champion this data privacy and education initiative in partnership with the National Cybersecurity Alliance.
Your data is valuable. Many organizations are willing to pay top dollar for your data and they all don’t have your best interests in mind. Protect Your Privacy with Simple Tips:
1. Know the Tradeoff Between Privacy and Convenience
When you download a new app, open an online account, or join a new social media platform, you’re often asked to share personal information such as your location, contacts or photos.
For these businesses, this personal information about you is tremendously valuable, and you should think about if the service you get in return is worth the data you must share, even if the service is free.
Before you agree, ask yourself:
- Is this service, app or game worth the amount or type of personal data they want in return?
- Can you control your data privacy and still use the service?
- Is the data requested even relevant for the app or service?
- If you haven’t used an app, service, or account in several months, is it worth keeping around knowing that it might be collecting and sharing your data?
2. Adjust Privacy Settings to your Comfort Level
For every app, account or device, check the privacy and security settings. These are usually easy to find in the Settings menu and take only a few minutes to adjust. Set them to your comfort level for personal information sharing. Generally, it is wise to lean toward sharing less data, not more.
You don’t have to do this for every account all at once, start small and over time make a habit of adjusting all your settings to your comfort. Explore the National Cybersecurity Alliance’s free resources which can help you check and update your settings.
3. Protect your Data
Data privacy and security go hand-in-hand. Along with managing your data privacy settings, follow some simple cybersecurity tips to keep it safe:
- Create long passwords (at least 12 characters) that are unique to each account and device. Use a password manager to store each password – maintaining dozens of passwords securely is now easier than ever.
- Turn on multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever it is permitted – this keeps your data safe even if your password is compromised.
- Turn on automatic updates for devices, software, and browsers or install updates promptly when available.
- Learn how to identify scam messages, which can be sent as emails, texts, or direct messages.
For more information about ways to keep you and your family’s personal data safe, visit: StaySafeOnline.org.
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