When I think about my digital footprint or identity, I do not think of myself to have as big of feet as others. I live quite off-the-grid for the most part in my life. I have not regularly used social media in the past. I do not have Instagram or Snapchat or Reddit. I only recently signed up for Twitter because I was compelled to. If you were to Google me, you would think I am a very boring person. From a Google search, about all you would see at first instance is perhaps where I went to school, and some of the sports I was involved in. You might be able to find me on Facebook, but even that has seen limited action in the recent years.
Although I think of my digital footprint as being small, I am aware that it is much larger than I could imagine. My digital footprint is a trail of all of the data created while I have used the internet. Most of it is minor information, but yet it is still there. Everything I have done over the internet, whether or not it can easily be found, exists in some form. Any advertisements that I have posted exist. For example, I have used Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace in the past to buy and sell items, and that trail would still exist. I have sent many emails over the years from multiple email accounts. Some have been for work, some for school, and some personal. Some of the emails were not even sent by me, but were born from the result of email hacks. All of this information makes up my digital footprint.
Even though I do not post personal information online, I have a significant passive digital footprint, consisting of all of the unintentional data I have left online. I have been on a multitude of different websites through different search engines. When I conduct research, the web server identifies me, and a trail is left of whichever information I navigate through. Many web servers can identify my location, or my internet service provider, and that leaves a digital mark as well. I recently became aware of how many cookies and such are collected through the course of regular navigation of the internet. My computer was starting to lag, caused by an overload of information stored in the “other” category of my device. I Googled (again leaving a digital footprint), how to reduce the clutter on my computer, and one of the suggestions was to delete all of the cookies and cache files on my device. I followed the suggestion, and was amazed just how much storage was freed up by removing this extra information. Around one fourth of my computer’s storage was made up of these files, marking out only a fraction of my digital trail.
I have included a link to a website on removing cache files from the “other” category in storage on a Mac, for those of you who are interested.
https://www.imore.com/how-find-and-remove-files-other-category-mac
I think that it is important for people to understand how much larger their digital footprint is than they may realize. I would teach this idea, as well as protecting one’s digital identity, to any of my students in school. The basis of my lesson would be to assume that everything you do online can leave a trail. People often have a tendency of hiding behind their screens on the assumption that nobody can see their actions, but the truth is that they can. Once something is up on the internet, you should assume that it is now available to the whole world. I would ask students to ponder this question regularly, before posting any material or navigating any website: Would I be comfortable with anyone in the world knowing what I am about to do? Or routinely do a quick scan and see what information you can find about yourself or your past internet use. Check your website history. Check through cookies and cache folders and any other information stored on your device. See what exists, and know that whatever you find in terms of your digital footprint, there is much much more out there.
Here is a list of 12 tips for students to manage their digital footprints:
Image source: https://pixabay.com/images/search/digital%20footprint/
Nice post! I like that you use the term 'passive digital footprint.' It reminds me that, even though (like you) I don't post much personal information about myself online, there's still a tonne of data out there about me!
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