Your Digital Footprint: What is it exactly?
Digital footprints are something everyone should know about, because every single one of us creates our own trail of data everyday, without even realising it’s happening. Footprints can reveal a lot about you by building up a detailed picture of your likes and habits. Just by posting a picture, using google maps or visiting a website, you become the creator of your own digital profile, something that is often open for many people to see.
To contain the risk that your data footprint presents, you must first understand the magnitude of it. So, let’s begin with the two types, your passive footprint and your active footprint:
A passive footprint is your personal data that is collected, often without you even knowing. This type is used to target advertisements, to build customer profiles and more. You add to your passive footprint, for instance, when you visit certain websites. Normally this data is accessed through your cookies. Have you ever wondered how Youtube knows what shoes you were just looking at? They use your passive digital footprint.
We rarely think about this type of digital footprint, however it can become a major headache in some circumstances. Every site you visit gives companies more information to store and commercialise.
An active footprint is created when someone makes deliberate choices on the internet. For example, by posting on social media or filling out online forms.
Nowadays, many people don’t even think before they post; we don’t consider the consequences, but we should be careful about what we’re posting.
A good example is when it comes to applying for a new job. Most companies are going to look at your social media profiles and even if your CV seems unbeatable, a rude comment on twitter or a drunken photo on Instagram can be enough to spoil your chances.
4 steps to protect your digital footprint:
- Search for yourself on the internet
If you google yourself you will see everything that has been posted about you on the internet, including pictures and any content related to your name.
If you find something about yourself that you don’t want to be public, you should follow the required steps to delete it from the internet. You have a right to request the deletion of your data. This is often referred to as the ‘right to erasure’ or the ‘right to be forgotten’.
2. Delete accounts, if you no longer use them
Make a list of accounts you are using and make sure that as soon as you don’t use an account anymore, you deactivate and request that the company deletes it. By doing this, you ensure that your data is no longer online, nor at risk in a business’s database, removing the possibility of your accounts being used or exposed by hackers.
If for some reason you can’t delete an old account, update them with a false name, email address and image. Google will then eventually index these changes, which means they will no longer be visible on your digital footprint.
And always remember: You may not think about old accounts anymore, but the internet never forgets.
3. Use privacy settings and think about what you post online
If you have one or more social media accounts, you should definitely check out the privacy settings. All of these networks have a lot of information about you and you would be surprised how much information is visible to random people on the internet.
In the ‘sharing’ generation (where your Instagram is a public diary of your life), we have become increasingly unconscious when it comes to sharing our data. Younger people especially, should start using privacy settings, because teens have become more likely to share a lot of information on social media sites.
Here are some statistics of what most young people reveal about themselves online:
It’s important to be careful with what you post on the internet, because it can get used against you. And that’s not just important for teens. It applies to adults as well.
Everything you make public can be seen by everyone: future employers, teachers and universities.
A perfect example would be the story of Justine Sacco, who experienced how less than 140 characters posted online (a tweet) can change your entire life. To sum it up, she lost her job because she posted something racist on Twitter. Even if it was a joke to her, it wasn’t for everyone else. She got into a huge amount of trouble and faced tremendous backflash. That is just one little example of what can happen when you don’t think before you post.
4. Use secure passwords
Don’t use the same password for all of your online profiles. Make them easy to remember for yourself and hard to figure out for everyone else, because you don’t want strangers to enter your accounts. You can also use a password manager to memorise long and unique passwords.
So, how should a very secure password look?
- Go for length when you create a password, because the shorter it is, the easier it is to crack. Make sure it’s at least 8 characters long, but aim for 14 characters for your own safety.
- It’s also important that you try to add some complexity. Secure passwords contain symbols, punctuation, deliberate misspellings, and a blend of lowercase and capital letters.
- Add numbers to a new password, because it’s always harder for others to figure out a keyword that contains numbers and letters.
- If you’re not 100% sure about the safety of your access key, you can use a password checker. In case your password is rated weak or medium, you can add more numbers, symbols or letters to make it more complex.
A secure password would be, for example: 4_3ver#vACATI0n’
We should all understand the importance of privacy, because with every little activity on the Internet, we lose a small degree of privacy. What do you think about it and what do you do to protect your privacy? Leave a comment and tell me what your thoughts are.
