A healthchecker has been added to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website which should let you minimise the amount of personal data that companies hold about you.
Despite a series of high-profile data blunders recently, 44 per cent of UK citizens have never even considered contacting an organisation to find out what data it holds about them as an individual, according to the ICO.
David Smith, deputy commissioner at the ICO, said: "Sometimes people have no choice but to provide personal details to organisations, yet the more information we provide, the greater the risk that it will become out of date, be held for too long, or fall into the wrong hands.
"The more people that use their rights to check what information is held about them, the stronger the signal to organisations that the mismanagement of people's personal details will not be tolerated," Smith continued.
The healthchecker uses a quiz format to work out how secure your data is, asking questions about how you store important documents and whether you use the same password or PIN for more than one service.
www.ico.gov.uk/infohealthcheck
Topic: Online privacy checker launched (Read 746 times)