Personal privacy has been severely eroded in the digital age. Many internet surfers leave phone numbers and addresses on social networking sites such as Facebook for thieves to exploit, while there are also sites designed solely to capture personal data. And it’s not just on the web that you should worry. If you haven’t set a strong password on your home wi-fi network, it’s easy for people to access your files.

As a result, crimes such as identity theft are so common that a House of Lords inquiry into net security described the internet as a “Wild West”.

Fortunately, there are measures you can take to ensure you do not fall victim to identity theft, and many ways to keep personal data personal.

GENERAL SURFING
Part of the joy of the internet is discovering new sites. But there’s a risk that an innocent-looking destination could have been set up to capture your personal data with spyware (which will load onto your computer when you visit the site and monitor your activities). McAfee’s Site Advisor (www.siteadvisor.com) is a good first line of defence. The program displays a green or red button at the bottom of your screen, letting you know if a site is considered safe by the security company’s database. It’s occasionally overzealous, but better that than too liberal.

One of the other ways that fraudsters aim to capture personal information is through “phishing”. They send an e-mail purporting to be from your bank. It will provide a link to a bogus website that mimics your bank’s site, and you will be asked to enter log-in details. If you do so, you will be handing over access to your bank account. The banks are hitting back with the Bank Safe Online site (www.banksafeonline.org.uk), which details threats and provides a form to report suspected fraud. Remember: banks never ask for account details or log-in information by e-mail.

SEARCH ENGINES
Search engines are growing ever more rapacious in terms of the personal data they gather. Every search you make on sites such as Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live is stored by these companies. They insist the data are held anonymously to help improve search results, but if you think this measure is intrusive, you can throw them off your scent with a service such as Tor ( tor.eff.org), which can make surfing untraceable to your computer.

A simpler solution is to install the powerful CustomizeGoogle (www.customizegoogle.com) add-on for the Firefox browser (see InGear’s browser guide at tinyurl.com/2akfq5). This will stop Google tracking your computer’s searches. Once installed, in Firefox click Tools, Customize Google Options, then select Privacy from the list on the left and tick the two boxes.

SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES
These sites are manna for identity fraudsters because people volunteer all the information they need. Facebook, one of the most popular, was recently accused of inadvertently helping fraudsters by making personal details accessible to search engines.

There are some details you should never divulge on such sites: date of birth, mother’s maiden name, address and phone numbers, employment details – anything that could be used to fill out a credit card application or crops up in bank security questions.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that, on sites such as Myspace and Facebook, you’re only sharing those details with friends. More than 500 people are Facebook “friends” with Karl Kennedy, the character from Neighbours, even though they haven’t a clue if the person behind the profile is the genuine actor or an identity thief.

If you must add strangers to your Facebook friends list, select the option to let them see only your Limited Profile when the Friends Request arrives, and make sure your contact details are removed. Find out more about privacy options at tinyurl.com/ybsybk .

E-MAIL
Most e-mails are plain text and if someone intercepts the message, its content is laid bare. One way around this is with encryption, which jumbles the message into a code that requires the correct “key” to read. Hushmail (www.hushmail.com) offers a free webmail service that will encrypt your e-mails.

Hushmail encrypts and decrypts messages sent between members; if you send a message to someone not using the encryption service, you also have to send them a question that they must answer correctly before being allowed to read the message.

Handing out your personal e-mail address is another problem. Before you can read the content on some sites, you are required to register, which means providing your e-mail address. You are then e-mailed a password to access the site. But how do you know that site is not going to sell your e-mail address to spammers? Mailinator (www.mailinator.com) has a simple solution. Register with it and create an e-mail address in the form of nameofyourchoice@mailinator.com. You can then receive e-mails from sites without divulging your real address (you can check your Mailinator inbox by going to the Mailinator site).

But don’t use it for shopping sites that may include sensitive information such as credit card details in their e-mails to you, as inboxes on Mailinator are not protected.

SECURING YOUR OWN NETWORK
Many people leave their wireless network connections unsecured. At best this means neighbours can get a free ride, at worst it leaves your home network exposed to hackers.

Microsoft provides a clear guide to setting up and securing a network at www.microsoft.com/athome/ moredone/wirelesssetup.mspx .

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