How to Be Invisible Online — Without Going Off the Grid (Infographic)

It's important to go the extra mile to protect your personal information online. Image credit: Johner Images | Getty Images Companies and organizations are getting their hands on our data and using it for a number of reasons we don’t even know about. Related: No One Is Safe From the Data Breach Epidemic (Infographic) For starters, turn on incognito mode in your web browser. This disables the tracking tools in your browser and prevents websites from collecting your personal information. You can also block third-party cookies -- cookies are small pieces of data that enable information about you to be remembered by external sites. If you’re a social media user, you’ve got a 46 percent higher risk of an account takeover or fraud compared to non-social media users. So it’s important to set specific settings for your posts. For example, on Facebook you can limit access to your future posts to make sure they are only visible to your friends. You should also update your privacy settings to hide your personal information from your pages so random people can’t access things including your email address or phone number. Lastly, make sure to block external apps from accessing your personal data.