In the digital age our online presence has become integral to our everyday lives. From posting our lunches on social media to job hunting every interaction leaves a mark online. With minimal skills and some spare time anyone can find a wealth of information from your digital footprint.
What is a digital footprint?
Your digital footprint is the trail of data left behind by your online activities. A digital footprint is not a literal thing but a concept; It includes social media posts, google searches, online purchases and much more. Almost everything you do online is tracked by your ISP, the sites you visit, and often third party sites like Facebook and Google. All this tracking contributes to your digital footprint.
Why are footprints important?
Unlike real footprints digital footprints tend to be permanent, once you post something online you lose control of it and it becomes difficult to remove. Just check the wayback machine to see how permanent the internet is.
Our digital footprints are major contributors to our online reputation. As our lives become ever more digital our online presence increasingly contributes to our real life; Prospective employers, clients and even friends or partners will often perform online searches about you to help shape their opinions. The posts you make online can have serious consequences to your career and relationships.
Controlling your data
Your digital footprint contains all the personal information you submit to websites. This often includes Emails, phone numbers, addresses, credit card numbers and more. When websites get hacked, which is more often than you would think, the hackers steal this data and sell it on the dark web. You can check if your data has been leaked by using Have I Been Pwned.
Once your data is out there cyber criminals exploit it for identity theft, phishing, fraud and targeted advertising. Once the data becomes public, reclaiming and removing it becomes virtually impossible. The only way to prevent this is to avoid submitting the information in the first place.
Who are data brokers?
Most people know that companies like Google and Facebook harvest your data so that they can sell it onto advertisers. What many people don’t realise is that this can often include another intermediary called a data broker. These are companies that build a profile of you from your digital footprint and then sell it on to anyone willing to pay the price. Data brokers can even sell your data to law enforcement for cases where they cannot get search warrants.
How to manage your digital footprint
The easiest way to manage your footprint is to think before you share. Your posts will remain available on the internet forever and may be the first thing a person learns about you. Before you post, consider if the post accurately reflects the image you wish to present.
Another helpful tip is to review your privacy settings and limit who can see your posts. This will make it harder but not impossible for a person to track you online.
If you’re in the EU you can exercise your right to be forgotten under GDPR. This means that when requested, a company is obligated to delete any personal information they hold about you; It is important to remember that this doesn’t stop people, or sites like the wayback machine, from saving the data themselves prior to its deletion.
Finally, you can install privacy tools and browser extensions to help prevent companies harvesting your data and selling it to data brokers. Some examples include Ad Blockers such as uBlock or applications like Pi-Hole. Read my previous post for an overview of Pi-Holes.