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A digital footprint is just like your physical footprint while running, playing, and having fun on the beach with some small differences. These footprints can show exactly the places you’ve been and things you’ve seen and done.
Your footprint can easily be gathered with website visitor tracking tools or other more complicated methods. Unfortunately, unlike your footprints on the beach, your digital ones won’t be washed up with waves. They will remain for a long time and can be used or misused.
In this article, we will go through a solid definition of digital footprint and how it works and can be used in the digital world.
What Is a Digital Footprint?
Let us begin with the digital footprint meaning. Almost everything you do online leaves a trail. Certain traces, like a public social media post, are easy to find. Some are harder to detect, such as cookies that websites employ to monitor visitors.
A person or company’s digital footprint is the sum of all the traces they leave behind in the digital world, regardless of the device they use or are connected to. This is the digital footprint definition, your every little deed in the digital world.
Although both companies and individual users like you have digital footprints, there are several notable differences between the two. The personal information that a person shares, both directly and indirectly, makes up their footprint. It includes surfing history, online account activity, and the information that data tracking software gather while you are on websites.
Let us go through some of the digital footprint examples:
- IP Addresses,
- Passwords and login information,
- Phone numbers,
- Social Posts,
- Search history,
- Downloads,
- Subscriptions,
- Purchase history.
Types of Digital Footprint
Now that we know what your footprints on the Internet are, let’s talk about the 4 types that shape it:
1. Passive
Websites gather information about a user’s online activities, leaving behind a passive digital footprint for each interaction. This is true about browsing and purchasing histories, as well as cookies from websites. This is because the user has agreed with the terms of that specific website and now the website can gather this information that contains a wide range of data. This can be from user behavioral tracking to time of activity and so many more categories. However, They are gathered in the background, hidden from the user’s view.
2. Active
Active footprints are data that the user published deliberately in the digital world. Most people don’t know how this information will be used in the future. This is problematic because they can be used in problematic matters. can be Public evaluations, online article publications, and social media posts fall under this category.
3. Positive
A positive digital footprint is traceable information that enhances your online reputation. Your positive digital legacy includes posts about your career accomplishments, pictures of you planting trees, membership on the board of community projects, and so on. The point is that whatever increases your positive traits in the digital world falls under this category.
4. Negative
The exact opposite is true for your negative digital footprint. Negative effects on your reputation may also come from what people discover about you online. ‘Negative’ can vary depending on who is reading it; this is why negative footprints can be subjective and should be handled cautiously.
What Is the Importance of a Digital Footprint?
Now is the time to discuss the importance of these footprints in daily basis life for a user of the Internet.
1. Reputation
Your reputation can be greatly affected by your digital footprint, even if the information is decades old. For instance, your perception by others may be influenced by a somewhat weird statement you made years ago in a public forum. The effects of a negative footprint can also be harsh. Even when your perspectives have evolved, your older beliefs could remain forever and affect your future.
2. It Can be Permanent
Software engineers and security experts always advise about what you publish online because it might stay there forever. Even if you request that a website, server, or social media platform remove a portion of your digital footprint, there’s a potential that this information has been recorded by someone else. Therefore, you no longer have control over your information on the Internet, and it can be used by marketers for behavioral targeting and other purposes.
3. Employment and Vetting
77% of employers, according to Monster, search for individuals’ backgrounds online. Therefore, your employment prospects may be significantly affected by your digital footprint.
Employers are not the only ones who look up your online activities. Before granting diplomas, visas, citizenships, or other credentials, governments, security firms, police departments, and other entities might examine your footprint.
Candidates are also being checked by universities and colleges through an analysis of their footprints.
4. Exploitation of Information
Your information can be used by a hacker in several ways. For instance, they might utilize your information to create a spear-phishing assault and discover more about you.
A broad and open digital footprint could also be used by a hacker to launch a Doxing attack. To put it another way, they might make public whatever private information you provide.
So it is of utmost importance to be aware of the information that you share in the digital world.
Conclusion
Nowadays we spend most of our time in the digital world. We use the Internet in every possible situation. Shopping, entertainment, education, in our workplace and so many other occasions. This is why it is important to know about your footprint and care about it.
In this article, we described what is a digital footprint and gave you some examples of its importance. It is now up to you to start thinking more about what information you share and where on the Internet.
FAQs
We tried our best to answer questions like ‘What does digital footprint mean’ and give you all you need to be more careful and raise your awareness about your footprint. Here are some more questions that may not have been answered yet:
1. What Is a Digital Footprint Checker?
It is a tool that conducts an in-depth analysis of social media profiles, scrutinizing posts, likes, and comments to assess public image. It also identifies pictures or information that may be risky for your security.
2. How Do I See My Digital Footprint?
One of the easiest ways to know what personal information is publicly available about you online is to go to Google, Bing, or any search engine, type your full name and search for yourself. However, there is a lot more information that won’t show up in a simple search.
