5 Easy Tips to Prevent Online Fraud: In a world where every search, click, and location ping adds to your online identity, your digital footprint becomes a rich dossier about you—collected, stored, and used by platforms, advertisers, and sometimes malicious actors. While vanishing completely from the internet might be unrealistic, it’s entirely possible to dramatically reduce your digital shadow and reclaim far more control over your privacy. Here’s how to get started in five clear steps.
5 Easy Tips to Prevent Online Fraud
1. Start by clearing your major provider’s history
Since one company often sees much of your digital activity—searches, videos, maps, app usage—it makes sense to begin there. Sign in, visit the activity or history dashboard, and select “delete by → all time” (or your chosen period) to wipe the slate clean. This not only purges past records but weakens the foundation for personalised tracking and profiling going forward.
2. Stop future data collection at the source
Deleting old data is only half the fight. To avoid leaving new traces, go into the provider’s “Activity Controls” (or equivalent settings) and turn off: web & app activity logging, location history, and video history (or whichever features record your behaviour). By stopping data collection at its root, you prevent the accumulation of fresh information about your habits and whereabouts.
3. Disable cross-device and cross-platform tracking
Even if you disable tracking on one device, your account may still sync data across tablets, smartphones, laptops, or other logged-in devices. Go into the “Data & Privacy” section, and switch off ad personalisation and tracking features that tie your behaviour across devices. That makes it much harder for companies to build a unified “you” out of multiple sources of data.
4. Set up automatic data deletion for ongoing hygiene
Manual purges are useful, but prone to delay or neglect. To stay on top of things, activate the auto-delete feature in your account settings: choose which categories (web/app activity, location history, video history) get cleaned and how often (for example: older than 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months). Automation ensures your digital footprint remains minimal without constant effort.
5. Fortify your connection and secure your accounts
Clearing histories and turning off tracking helps—but your privacy also depends on how you connect and protect your accounts. Use a VPN (virtual private network) to encrypt your internet traffic and mask your IP address. Choose privacy-oriented browsers (e.g., ones that block ads/trackers by default). Regularly update passwords, use strong and unique ones for each account, and enable two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible. These steps wrap an extra layer of protection around your online presence.
Understanding the digital footprint
Your digital footprint is the invisible trail you leave: every search, social-media post, photo, location ping, app launch. It includes two types: the active footprint (what you share intentionally: posts, messages) and the passive footprint (what you don’t necessarily control: cookies, tracking, location logs). Together they create a searchable, analysable image of you that companies, advertisers—and in worse situations, criminals—can exploit.
Why reducing it matters
Managing and reducing your digital footprint is not about hiding—it’s about taking back control. Every website you visit, every app you use, every device connected adds fragments of personal data. Over time, they build a comprehensive profile of you: your interests, habits, movements, even vulnerabilities. By actively cleaning up and locking down this data trail you reduce your exposure to targeted ads, identity theft, profiling, and misuse. More importantly, you claim more agency over your digital self.
