Digital footprint: All about electronic footprint and how to leave minimal digital trace
What is a Digital footprint?
A digital footprint refers to the impression or trail you leave behind performing any online activity. A digital footprint grows in different forms, like whenever we post anything on social media platforms, interact with other internet users, shop online, post reviews or subscribe to any newsletter.
One can not stop the creation of online footprints. They are created either intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes people think of cookies whenever the word “digital footprint” comes into their ears. Let us understand how these cookies contribute to your digital trace.
Whenever any user visits a website, that website installs cookies into the victims’ devices or applications. This way, they gather or collect your private data without letting you know. After collecting the data, they can either use it for their own or can even sell your data to third parties. In the worst scenario, your data can be compromised as a part of a data breach.
A digital footprint contains much more information. Following are some of the data they carry and can be revealed about you:-
- Which browser are you using? (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
- What is your IP address?
- What is your screen resolution?
- Which operating system are you using? (Windows 10, Mac)
Digital footprint examples
Let us understand digital footprints more clearly by looking at the examples of digital footprints. Users can leave behind a digital trace in a variety of ways, such as:
Social media sites
- Social media credentials connecting other websites
- Posting pictures and sharing data on social accounts
- Communicating with friends and other contacts
- Signing up for online dating sites, professional and personal networking sites
Reading News
- Subscription to an online news source
- In a news app, signing up also increases the digital footprints
- Subscribing for a publication’s newsletter, reposting articles and other pieces of information
- Reading blogs on a news app
Online Banking
- Use of a mobile application for online banking
- Getting subscriptions to blogs and financial publications
- Requesting a credit card account
- We are using mobile banking app, buying and selling stocks, subscribing to marketing and retail products for buying.
Health
- Use of fitness trackers and wearable tech
- Using an email address for a gym registration
- Getting a subscription to health and fitness blogs
- Review your mobile use, including the use of mobile applications for getting healthcare
Online Banking
- Making online purchases from e-commerce sites
- Subscribing for brand newsletters
- Using shopping applications for shopping
- Creating an account and signing up for coupons
Why does digital footprint matter?
There are several reasons why internet footprint matters:
- Content that may be sensitive or private intended for a private group can spread to a broader circle, potentially damaging relationships and friendships.
- Before the decision to hire, potential employees’ digital footprint, specifically their social media, can be checked by employers. Before accepting the student, colleges and universities can check their digital footprint.
- Unintentional offence can be caused by altered and misinterpreted words and photos you post online.
- False identity creation based on your data or phishing for account- purposes can be done by cybercriminals after they exploit your digital footprint.
- As they are relatively permanent, the owner has little control over how others will use their data once it becomes public – or even semi-public, as in the case of Facebook posts. Facebook logging maintains an online database that includes a lot of information, part of which you can download related to your account activity from within your account privacy settings.
- In today’s society, online reputation is as essential as offline reputation, and a person’s Internet footprint plays a key role in determining that reputation.
For the reasons mentioned above, consideration of the digital footprint which describes you is worth it. It’s not uncommon for people to manage their online footprint by being cautious online so that the data they gather is as limited as possible.
Types of digital footprint
There are two types of digital footprints, one called active impression, and the other called passive digital footprint. In this section, we will discuss both of them in detail. The following are the two types of digital footprints:
Active digital footprint
An active digital footprint is where the user has purposely shared their information- for instance, via participating or posting on online forums or social networking sites. User form part of their active digital footprints by making any posts if they logged into a website with a registered profile or username. Online form completion, such as subscribing to a newsletter or allowing cookies to be stored on your browser, are other activities which contribute to active footprints.
Passive digital footprint
A passive digital footprint is created when we go about our daily lives using the internet, social media and other digital platforms. This process includes the hidden process of collecting user information such as browser footprint, IP address, and preferences based on everything from the articles we read and share online to the comments we leave on blog posts and news stories. Over time, our passive digital footprints can give others a good idea of our interests, opinions and personality.
For instance, mobile devices logging information about user devices, user behaviour slowly adds up to a wealth of information about an individual/owner of the device. All these data connections joining together form valuable profile information that may be used to identify a person or helpful in relating to the user behaviour, mostly disguised under debugging or diagnostics information collection.
While passive digital footprints can help us connect with others who share our interests, it’s important to remember that people can also access them we don’t know. For example, employers may use socials to screen job applicants, and insurance companies may check our online activity when setting rates.
How to protect your digital footprint
There are some steps for ensuring that our digital footprint shares information as much as we would like to share :
Start with reviewing your privacy settings on social media platforms
Establishing privacy settings and people who can access your social streams being regulated is profitable to create boundaries between public and private spheres.
Certainly, that statement is followed by a couple of caveats. The exact setting every platform carries to take benefits them, and this would be understood by the first one by taking time. Secondly, As personal details are “subject to discovery if they are relevant”- ruled by courts, we should acknowledge that the settings are not unmistakable.
Mainly, young people are at higher risk of information disclosure due to their constant activity on social media and information-sharing websites.
Research your name on different search engines and set up an alert for future notification
Above all, before worrying about our digital footprint management and protection, what information is circulating on the internet needs to be ascertained first. The yielded result will surprise most people- for instance, the history of phone numbers and residential addresses, including the most current versions.
