This post is brought to you by Your Digital File, however all views are my own. 

Living in a digital world, where our lives are increasingly played out online, we are reminded often about the importance of the privacy, safety and security of both ourselves, and our children.

As parents, we talk about the effects on reputation and our digital footprint when we over share. We talk about the threats to our safety when we reveal locations and publicise our every move. We talk about keeping personal information to a minimum in order to help protect our belongings and our identity.

As this world evolves however, it becomes evident that much of our personal files and data will increasingly be stored by ourselves and by others online. This means our contracts, our children’s medical reports and records, insurance policies, tax returns, Wills, trust deeds and share portfolios will all be floating around cyberspace ready to be accessed at a seconds notice. This can be great in terms of convenience and safekeeping, as well as not having to have one of those clunky metal filing cabinets taking up room in the home office.

But like all things we do online, we need to take steps to ensure these precious files are not vulnerable to exposure and misuse.

Companies such as Your Digital File help give us peace of mind that these files are kept safe and secure. Unfortunately we all know that ‘trusting’ companies online can be a little dicey and we cant afford to risk all our family documents to a life lived in the clouds.

When using a cloud server for document and file storage, here are some things we should be thinking about:

 Use a trusted platform

Do they meet global standards of digital file protection and data centre security?

What steps do they take to ensure security?

 Encrypt your files

Do they ensure every file is encrypted? Companies such as Your Digital Files ensure that encryption features are built in to the platform. To do this a document must run through an algorithm to convert the data on to an undecipherable format. In other words if you have sensitive information about your family, encryption ensures that it cannot be read by anyone other than those authorised to do so.

 Use digital signatures

And one thing I didn’t really know about before was the need for digital signatures. These can tell if a file has been accessed, who by, when and what changes were made. So when you attach a digital signature to a file you have a lot more control over who sees it and what changes they can make.

 Passwords and private information

Kids hear a lot now about not revealing private details and passwords for their own safety, but we also need to remind them of the other elements of online security such as fraud, misuse of documents and stealing of identities.

Whilst I recognise that more and more of our personal lives and data will continue to be accessible to the wider world, I think it is imperative we continue to take steps to secure the documents and information that are so important to ourselves and to our families.

Do you store important documents online? How safe do you think they are?