How to Ensure Your Personal Data is Secure Online

How to Ensure Your Personal Data is Secure Online

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that six out ten adults in the UK buy their food, clothes, music and holidays online. The majority of the time consumers are using well-known retail sites, or trusted brands which have been in business for some time.

For many it’s become the usual way to do grocery shopping, but there is also a trend towards more non-food items being bought online. People are clearly confident about giving their personal and bank details to these sites. If you’re a frequent online shopper yourself, you too will have entered your personal address and bank card details on one or more sites. You’ll have done this because you trust the retailer to protect your information and in the case of the big name online retailers you’re most likely completely safe.

Nonetheless, when making purchases online it’s always worth checking that the site you’re using has what is known as an SSL Certificate. SSL is the acronym for Secure Socket Layer which is a security protocol which encrypts all data as it flows from the web browser on your pc or mobile device to and from the retailer’s servers. An SSL Certificate proves that SSL data security protocols are installed on the site.

All e-commerce retailers should also have their customer’s data privacy protected by having what is known as an SSL server at their end to complete the process. SSL encryption is the most extensively used and trusted security technology available to protect your private data from criminal or malicious activity. For this reason, it’s advisable to only buy online from SSL enabled sites.

How to identify an SSL Certified website

The easiest way to identify an SSL Certified site is the look at the address bar on your web browser. When viewing a page which asks for personal or financial information a padlock icon will appear to the left of the address and may also be highlighted in green. This gives you the peace of mind that any data you enter on the page will kept safe and private.

It’s in your best interest to ensure that the site you’re buying from is protecting your private data as best as it possibly can. With SSL security encryption you can be confident that your personal information is secure.