# Privacy Footprint

Not gonna lie, I was somewhat afraid to do this assignment. I am not particularly one to take proper care of my digital footprint, so anything that is revealed to me today is completely new and unknown to me. My first course of action was a cheeky search of my first and last name into Google, to which my LinkedIn page was the first to come up: makes sense, as I've been frantically visiting LinkedIn in the past months due to co-op season.


What interested me particularly was the first couple of images that came up as a result of searching my name. They are all easily recognizable: an image of me in high school posing for our National Honor Society, another high school image of me and my swim team, my profile picture on Pinterest (a stuffed animal called a [peepy](https://itemlabel.com/products/mistake-peepy-mistakepy)), and a picture my friend Conor took of me in Steast dining hall that he posted on a photography website (maybe I should tell him to take it down).


Fortunately, my first-glance digital footprint pulled through for me and doesn't show absolutely terrible content about me. As listed: my Pinterest profile (only used for collecting aesthetic pictures), my participation on the E-board of the Northeastern Entrepreneurs Club, my involvement with a nonprofit organization, my NHS high school involvement, and some information about when I used to swim in high school. Back in the day, the only thing that came up for me was my swim records, so I'm glad for the most part that I was able to diversify as I got older.

As Kerninghan mentioned in his digital footprint chapter, he came across a post that mentioned a job interviewer mentioning things that weren't in the interviewee's resume, assuming the interviewer went through the interviewee's public social media pages. I am relieved to say that the search results that came up as a result of my name help my job prospects case rather than hurt it, since my extracurriculars come up and not my deepest, darkest secrets.


What I found unsettling however was the images that come up under my name. I opened up Google images to explore further, and there was an image of someone's co-op post I left a comment under, some of my Pinterest reposts, one of my projects from 5th grade, a news article picture of me from elementary school, and more. When you scroll down even farther, it gets scarier: headshots of people from my inner circle and people that I am in clubs with. I didn't include the screenshot for privacy reasons, but also out of pure, unadulterated Fear.




As the last step in the exploration of my digital footprint, I explored the types of ads recommended to me. First was a look into my Google ads, which ironically came up with "People Search" and "Public Records" as a result of using Spokeo. I would say the other ad topics are somewhat vague and not niche enough to be tailored to me, however.

I then looked on my Instagram account and saw what types of ads are tailored to me, and what came up was much more Chloe than what Google had to offer: Anime & Cosplay, hip hop fashion, and Pokemon to name some specific ad interests. Haridy discussed a study conducted by two Northeastern individuals questioning whether phones listened to people's conversations. The results were horrifying: although apps did not turn on microphone activity, they were instead taking screenshots and videos of users' activity on the apps. This makes me question: Is Instagram recording and screenshotting my activity in order to tailor my ads so specifically? Is Instagram sending my data to third parties so that *they* could tailor *their* ads so specifically? I may never know... but then again, who knows if I even want to find out.