How Is Your Digital Footprint Created?
Basically, there are two ways your digital footprint is created, actively and passively. An active digital footprint is created when you deliberately post information online. The most obvious example might be posting on social media. A passive digital footprint is data you leave behind without knowing it when you're online.
Active Contributions
These are intentional actions you take online, such as:
- Social Media Posts: Posting updates, photos, videos, and comments on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn
- Blogging and Content Creation: Writing blog posts, creating, or posting comments under YouTube videos, or contributing to forums and discussion boards
- Online Shopping: Creating accounts, searching for items, making purchases, and leaving reviews on e-commerce sites
- Emails and Messages: Sending emails, participating in online chats, and messaging through various platforms
- Profile Information: Filling out profiles on social media, job portals, and other websites.
Passive Contributions
These are the data points collected without your direct input, such as:
- Browsing History: Websites you visit, pages you view, and searches you conduct are usually tracked by cookies and analytics tools. You might be quite surprised both by the number of websites that track you and the number of trackers they use. Note that this website doesn't track you. See our privacy statement here
- Location Data: Your geographic location, collected through GPS, IP addresses, and mobile apps
- Device Information: Data about the devices you use, including IP addresses, device type, and operating system
- Metadata: Information about your interactions, such as time stamps, frequency of visits, and patterns of usage.
Mixed Contributions
Some of your digital footprint is a mix of passive and active contributions - you might create a social media account (active) but then you can't control how other people might interact with it (passive) or, you may choose to buy a "smart" device (active) but have little control over what data transmitted back to head office (passive). Mixed contributions might include:
Social Interactions and Networking
- Tags and Mentions: Being tagged in posts, photos, and comments by others contributes to your digital footprint
- Social Media Interactions: Likes, shares, and comments on your posts by others, and your interactions with their posts. Who you choose to follow on social media.
Subscriptions and Memberships
- Newsletters and Mailing Lists: Subscribing to email newsletters, joining online communities, and registering for webinars
- Membership Sites: Creating accounts on various websites and forums and participating in their activities.
Professional Activities
- Work and Education Platforms: Using professional and educational platforms such as LinkedIn, online courses, and learning management systems, such as Moodle
- Public Records: Participation in professional events, publications, and any publicly accessible documents or databases.
Automated Systems and Internet of Things (IOT)Devices
- Smart Devices: Data from smart home devices, fitness trackers, and other IoT gadgets that you purchase or use
- Voice Assistants: Interactions with voice-activated assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, that you might choose to use.
No one can see everything you do online, but companies will create profiles based upon what they can see and often buy personal data from and sell personal data to other companies to build up a better profile of you.
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