Many of us enter the occasional competition. Whether that is to support a local good cause or simply because one of our favourite brands is offering the chance to get our hands on their latest offering for free. Increasingly, people are entering competitions online on a regular basis as a hobby. Hoping to tie in an enjoyable way to pass their spare time with a potential win. This hobby can end up giving you items you might never have been able to afford or experiences that money can’t buy!
If the competitions you enter are from reputable sites, you should have reasonable confidence about how your data will be managed when you enter. These types of organisations know that they have to comply with GDPR requirements and will have put in place measures to safeguard your personal data.
Sadly, there are some unscrupulous people out there. Some use competitions to trawl for personal data that they may then use for less than welcome purposes. Here we look at how to keep your data safe when entering online competitions.
Consider the information you provide
Quite often, the only information you will be asked to provide will be your name and your email address. This is reasonable and probably the bare minimum a competition provider would need. Occasionally, you may need to provide additional information. This may be entirely reasonable, but it makes sense to question if it is necessary for the competition.
If you are asked for information that is not required for the prize, especially personal information, it would be advisable to be wary and check the provider further. Also check any tick boxes that you aren’t unknowingly agreeing for your data to be passed around.
Check the website when Entering Competitions Online
A secure website should start with https and show the padlock sign. If it does not, the information you enter may be at risk.
The website will also likely contain information about the competition provider’s business. For example, if an airline is offering a holiday as a prize, you would expect to be able to navigate the site to search for and purchase a flight. If something doesn’t seem normal, it makes sense to be cautious.
There are also websites out there which have genuine prizes but their core focus is collecting data to sell on. You can find out more about these on our list of websites to avoid.
Have a separate email to enter competitions
Quite often we enter competitions on impulse and will just provide our usual email address to the competition provider. On the face of it, why not? They will need to contact you if you win so it makes sense that they need your email address.
In rare cases, a competition may be set up to phish for passwords, allowing a potential hacker to then access your email. If the only email address you give away for competitions is one that has no other purpose, you will limit the information that will be available to a hacker considerably.
Find and enter competitions today with Competition Finder.
