In today’s digital age, it’s important to remember that the activity you engage in online is often tracked, traced, and saved. While there are methods to prevent too much of your information from being recorded while you use online services and websites, virtually every user of the internet and online services will have both a passive and a digital footprint assigned to them.
If you want to be sure of where your personal data is going and what your digital footprint might consist of, it’s important to understand what exactly a passive digital footprint is and how to limit the sharing of your personal information online.
Your Digital Footprint: The Basics
Every user of the internet and other digital services has a digital footprint – there is no getting around the creation of a digital footprint if you are using devices that connect to the internet.
IP addresses, location data, device data, and your online behavior, such as how much time you spend watching certain videos or browsing certain shopping websites, all comprise your digital footprint.
It may be possible to hide elements of your digital footprint by using VPN services to mask your IP address, but your online behavior, data, and interactions with online services will still be recorded by browsers, search algorithms, and advertisers.
What Is an Active Digital Footprint?
An active digital footprint is the digital footprint that results from engaging in specific and deliberate online activities. This can include publishing content online, interacting with others through social media accounts or business websites, and using both email services and cloud services.
Online digital activity that includes your intellectual property can also be considered part of your active digital footprint.
Your passive digital footprint is different from an active digital footprint. Below, we give you details on everything that can potentially be included in your passive digital footprint:
- Browser cookies that websites utilize to track your activity
- Automatically saved search queries and form details
- Your browser history
- Personal data collected and saved by social media websites and other websites
- Algorithms attuned to your behaviors that are created on certain websites and social media sites
- Geolocation data collected by websites you visit
- IP address data
- Old and unused online accounts
Remember, passive digital footprints are different from active ones, in that all of the data and online information in your passive digital footprint is created unintentionally. This type of digital footprint simply occurs as you use websites and other services online.
Is It Risky to Have a Passive Digital Footprint?
Your passive digital footprint can give someone a lot of information about you and your online behaviors, which is something that many people wish to avoid. However, passive digital footprints are created without your knowledge for the most part, which can make protecting your personal data from being collected difficult.
In general, it is not risky to have a passive digital footprint, as long as you are visiting websites that are legitimate and don’t pose a risk to your personal information.
How Can I Find Online Information About Myself?
Your passive digital footprint will often end up on people search websites and similar services, since these websites use all available public information about a person to compile reports. If you are trying to find online information about yourself to see what type of passive digital footprint you have, you will need to search using one of these tools.
You can also view your browser settings when it comes to maintaining your search history; in the settings, you can also view which websites have cookies or save your search history to better understand the information that is being recorded about you.
On social media websites, you will need to navigate to the settings to see which data is collected about you and to adjust your settings so less personal information is shared with the websites’ algorithm when possible.
Can I Remove My Digital Footprint?
You cannot completely delete or remove your digital footprint from the internet and online services as long as you still use digital services. However, you can clean up your digital footprint by deleting and removing old accounts, opting out of people search websites, setting your social media accounts and online accounts to private, and staying informed about the data a website might collect about you.
What Is a Passive Digital Footprint? Keeping Your Online Activities Private
A digital footprint is something we all have in today’s world where many of our activities are conducted online. If you want to keep your online activities private, however, you will need to understand what makes up your digital footprint and take the time to investigate your own digital footprint, deleting and removing data where possible.
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