A digital fingerprint or electronic fingerprint is all the information about us that is available on the internet. Whenever you’re online, you leave a trail, just like when you walk along the beach. It’s a sign that shows where you’ve been, how long you’ve been there and what you’ve been doing. So, your digital footprint is revealed when you sign up to a website, send an email, download a video or upload a photo to a social media platform.
The importance of managing your digital footprint
People from a wide range of fields may be interested in your digital footprint. Without going any further, in recruitment processes, Many employers search for candidates’ names to check their social media activity. It’s not a universal practice, and it’s often criticised, but there’s no way of knowing who’s looking you up online.
In many cases, if a person’s digital footprint is viewed negatively by recruiters, it is highly likely that you will be ruled out of the selection process.
But it’s not just for professional reasons that you should manage your digital footprint; it’s also important when it comes to making new friends. You never know who might be curious about your online activity, so it is advisable to project a positive image of yourself through your digital footprint, with a view to job opportunities and society in general.
Furthermore, for cybersecurity reasons, it is also advisable to Don’t post too many details about your private life. You never know whether, at some point in your life, someone might maliciously impersonate you or use private information against you.
How can I check my fingerprint?
If you use the internet fairly regularly, you’ve probably left some sort of digital footprint behind.
There isn’t a user guide for verifying your fingerprint, but it’s very simple to do: search for your name online, your email address, your followers on your various social media platforms, and any other information that points to you.
In turn, Google makes the following available to its users Google Alerts, which allows you to set up alerts for any term for which new content is published online. You can set up an alert using your real name or your username so that Google notifies you when it finds any new matching information.
Types of fingerprints
Depending on how obvious the information you’re leaving behind on the internet is, we distinguish between two types of digital footprints:
Passive fingerprint
This digital footprint consists of the data you leave behind as you browse the internet automatically and silently. For example, your IP address identifies you at all times, as do your geolocation and your search history.
Examples of passive digital footprints:
- Internet browsing history, including websites visited and the time spent on each one.
- Location data collected by mobile apps and geolocation services.
- Purchasing preferences recorded by e-commerce platforms.
- Social media interactions, such as likes, shares and comments.
- Physical activity and health data recorded by tracking devices such as smartwatches and fitness apps.
Active digital footprint
We create this footprint ourselves when we decide to publish any information on the internet, very commonly, on social media. But it’s not just on social media; our digital footprint also includes emails and any posts by others that mention us.
Examples of an active digital footprint:
- Unlock a phone using the fingerprint scanner.
- Enter a password to log in to an online account.
- To provide biometric data for the facial recognition.
- Verify identity using voice in a voice recognition system.
- Use a token or security key to access a private network.
How can I protect my digital footprint?
Whilst we cannot control our entire passive digital footprint, we can take a number of precautions to minimise our digital footprint and any negative impact associated with it:
Find yourself
You might feel a bit strange looking for yourself, but It’s the best and quickest way to check your current digital footprint. You can try searching for your name or your usernames using different search engines and explore the search results.
If you see information about yourself that you don’t like, delete it if you posted it yourself at some point in your life. If you see other information about yourself that you didn’t post yourself, contact the website administrator to ask them to delete it.
Protect your privacy
All social media platforms and internet services offer different levels of privacy. If your online footprint is a bit of a concern, or you don’t want just anyone snooping on what you do – or don’t do – on social media, you can always set your profile to private so that only the friends you choose can see your content.
You can also periodically clear your search history or browse in incognito mode. Please note that browsing in incognito mode does not hide your IP address; it simply means that your searches will not be saved in your history.
Don’t overexpose yourself on social media
We’ve all met (or even been) people who post too many details about their personal lives online. Or worse still, about other people’s lives. Always bear in mind that anyone with access to your profile can share your posts. And once something is shared, it remains immortalised forever in your digital footprint.
We advise against posting any information or photos that you might later regret in the future or that cast you in a negative light. Prudence is a virtue that is very useful to exercise in such cases.
Restrict permissions for mobile apps
I’m sure you’ve downloaded an app onto your phone at some point that’s asked for permission to access half your phone. This isn’t a good security measure for protecting your digital footprint. Grant it only the permissions that are strictly necessary so that the app can work – no more, no less.
Manage your passwords effectively
“123456” isn’t a secure password, and you know it. Nor is it safe to use the same password for all the accounts you create. If a hacker discovers your password for one account, they automatically gain access to the rest without any effort.
Although it may sound clichéd, We recommend that you use different, complex passwords for each account What do you think? This is one of the best practices for data privacy that you can use. You could choose to write your passwords down somewhere safe so that you don’t forget them.
Español 
English (UK) 
Français