Avoid publishing information that can directly enable identity theft, account recovery, stalking or unwanted contact: passwords, authentication codes, full financial details, identity documents, precise home details and real-time location patterns. Other information should be shared deliberately rather than automatically.
Key points
- Avoid publishing information that can directly enable identity theft, account recovery, stalking or unwanted contact: passwords, authentication codes, full financial details, identity documents, precise home details and real-time location patterns.
- Privacy should be limited only for a clear reason, and any intrusion should go no further than needed.
- Dignity is preserved by explanation, consent where possible, private handling of sensitive matters and meaningful control.
The principle
Digital privacy is practical control over who can collect, infer, store, share and republish information about you. Once information spreads online, the loss of control can be difficult to reverse, so good defaults matter.
What the evidence and standards say
The ICO's privacy guidance repeatedly uses the same design principles: high-privacy defaults for children, transparency about data use, collection limited to what is needed, and safeguards against using information for wider purposes simply because it has already been collected. Information Commissioner's Office: the Children's code and children's online privacy. Information Commissioner's Office: children and the UK GDPR.
Why this matters in ordinary life
Privacy is often lost through small acts rather than dramatic breaches: entering without asking, discussing something within earshot, forwarding a screenshot, leaving a camera on, reading a message because the device was available, or making a personal decision on somebody else’s behalf because it seems faster. Each act can look minor in isolation. Repeated together, they teach a person that access to them is controlled by whoever has more authority, technology or confidence.
A dignity-first approach reverses that presumption. Access needs a reason. The person should know what is happening when that is possible. Sensitive information should have the smallest necessary audience. Support should preserve the person’s own decisions instead of replacing them merely because replacement is easier.
A practical privacy baseline
- Use high-privacy defaults and change them only when you understand the trade-off.
- Turn off unnecessary location, microphone, camera and contact permissions.
- Keep identifying information out of public bios and posts unless there is a reason to publish it.
- Use strong unique passwords and multi-factor authentication on important accounts.
- Before posting about someone else, ask whether they would reasonably expect that information to be public.
Where the limits are real
Privacy tools reduce exposure; they do not create invisibility. Platforms may still process information needed to run a service, recipients can copy what you send, and legal obligations can sometimes require retention or disclosure. Good privacy practice reduces unnecessary exposure rather than promising absolute secrecy.
The useful test
Ask four questions: What is the actual purpose? What private information, space or bodily access is genuinely needed? Is there a less intrusive way to achieve the same result? When will the intrusion stop? If those questions cannot be answered clearly, the boundary has probably been set around convenience rather than necessity.
Related reading
- How to Protect Your Privacy Online Without Disappearing From the Internet
- How to Balance Safety and Privacy
- What Is Personal Autonomy?
Conclusion
Privacy and dignity are practical conditions of a good life. They do not require isolation, secrecy or refusal of help. They require a presumption that a person’s body, information and private space belong to them, with interference justified by a real need rather than habit. Where safety or law requires a limit, the respectful answer is the narrowest effective limit. Everywhere else, privacy should be the default.