Surfshark has released an innovative new privacy tool called Alternative ID that provides users with an alternative email address and online persona, allowing you to keep your personal data from brokers and hackers.
“Alternative ID can help users enhance the privacy of their personal data online, avoid spam, and prevent their data from being sold to data brokers or stolen by malicious actors,” Surfshark explained in a press release shared with VPNOverview on Friday.
Surfshark’s Alternative ID gives you a new email address and identity to sign up for online services. This protects your personal information from big data and scammers and keeps your inbox from being overrun with spam emails.
“The service allows users to reap the benefits of signing up for services or newsletters without disclosing their personal information,” Surfshark explains.
Enhancing Online Privacy and Combatting Spam
With data breaches on the rise, spurred by sophisticated phishing and brute-force attacks, and the continued trade of user data — by data brokers to companies and among criminals on the dark web — it’s more important than ever to keep your data private.
Surfshark’s new tool tackles this issue head-on. “People are constantly asked by websites to provide their personal information… With Alternative ID, users can minimize their online footprint and enhance their privacy while maintaining their freedom online and being able to sign up on websites or subscribe to newsletters without worry,” Sarunas Sereika, product manager at Surfshark, said.
When you sign up for an online service using Surfshark’s Alternative ID, all the emails sent to your alternative email will be safely forwarded to your actual email address. You can delete an alternative email at any time. This allows you to block spam, phishing emails, and unwanted solicitations.
When creating an Alternative ID, you can select your preferred gender, birth date, and country, and Surfshark will generate a unique persona and email address based on those details.
“Alternative ID is not meant to be used with official and trustworthy establishments, such as governmental institutions or banks that require your real details. It is meant to be used on websites that are used only once or very rarely and that have vague privacy protection practices. It can also be used when signing up for newsletters, online shops, or when listing items online where your email might be exposed to strangers,” Sereika explained.
Setting Up Alternative ID
Surfshark has released the beta version of Alternative ID to Surfshark One and One+ users. The full version of Alternative ID, which is still in the works, will include more “exciting and useful features,” the company said.
Setting up an Alternative ID is simple. “To set up Alternative ID, users should log into their Surfshark One or Surfshark One+ account, select Alternative ID on my.surfshark.com/alternative-id, provide the preferences for their online persona, and start using it,” Surfshark explains.
Are you considering signing up for Surfshark to use Alternative ID? Read our Surfshark One review to learn about the other features of this all-in-one security suite and how it performed in our tests.
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