Every day, we
leave our comfortable homes for one reason or the other. We leave the house for
work, we visit the hospital, the shopping malls, bars, nightclubs, etc. We do
so by either driving our private cars, joining the public transport, or
walking. We leave traces that can attest to the fact that we were at these
locations. For example, you drove from your home to the office. You record your
car number in the logbook. You had lunch at a restaurant, and you were given a
receipt with the date and time. You purchased a drug at the mall. There are
CCTVs to record who entered the shop. In effect, you have left pieces of
information at the various places you have visited. Some were willingly given
by you and others you gave or left behind unknowingly.
Facility owners
would want to know who visited, when did he/she visit, what did he/she
purchase, etc. These details are used to make good decisions for improvement
such as to know when to open and close the shop, how many attendants are needed
at what times of the day.
Everything has
become digital and the life we live on the Internet is no different from what
we do on daily basis. You go online to order Uber or Bolt, you bought pizza
online and it was delivered to your office or you attended the appointment you
had with your doctor via the telehealth mobile app, do not forget about the
Zoom meeting you had. Our life offline and online are the same in terms of
activities.
Whether we like
it or not, most of us contribute to a growing portrait of who we are online; a
portrait that is probably more public than most of us assume. No matter what
you do online, it is important that you know what kind of trail you are
leaving, and what the possible effects can be. Every email, social media post,
photo and click you make online leaves a trail. Even by reading this article,
you are adding to your ever-growing details you leave online. It is permanent:
it follows you for life and it is not going anywhere—it is your digital
footprint.
A digital
footprint is a record or trail left by the things you do online. Your social
media activity, the information on your personal website, your browsing
history, your online subscriptions, any photo galleries, and videos you have
uploaded, the searches you do on social media or on Google. Do not forget the
profiles you view on social media, the comments you pass, your presence either
online or offline, status indicators such as busy, do not disturb —
essentially, anything on the Internet with your name or username on it all make
up your digital footprint.
“Your digital
footprint is data that’s created through your activities and communication
online. This can include more passive activities, such as if a website collects
your IP address, as well as more active digital activities, such as sharing
images on social media,” says Natalie Athanasiadis.
Your digital
footprint is all the stuff you leave behind as you use the Internet. Comments
on social media, Skype calls, app use, and email records - it is part of your
online history and can potentially be seen by other people or tracked in a
database.
Active digital
footprints are created when a user willingly releases personal data for the
purpose of sharing information about him. Here, data is provided explicitly,
and the user is aware of such data collection by the Internet service, or
he/she willingly provides such information. For example, when a user creates a
social networking profile or comments on some post or article then in such a
scenario, the user is creating an active digital footprint of him/herself. A
passive digital footprint is created when data is collected about some
online activity without the consent or knowledge of the user. This means data
is collected implicitly and most of the time the user is unaware of such data
collection. For example, in an online environment, whenever a user browses any
website, the website can trace his geographical location through the user’s IP
address.
Many
organizations work behind the scenes to build profiles about us using our
digital footprints. Once you share information about yourself on the Internet
through social media or websites, you lose some control over your privacy. Your
digital footprints may be bigger than you ever thought. They are all over the
place. Be conscious about what you leave behind on the Internet.
Author:
Emmanuel K. Gadasu
(Data
Protection Officer, IIPGH and Data Privacy Consultant at Information Governance
Solutions)
For
comments, contact author ekgadasu@gmail.com or
Mobile: +233-243913077
Source: www.iipgh.org
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