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# Privacy Footprint - Nov 8
Growing up, I was always told to be mindful of the information that we share online. Well, during a recent information panel with co-op employers, I was shocked to find that it is common for employers to research potential co-op candidates online, specifically on social media, to look for compromisable posts, photos, or other things that would jeopardize a student's candidacy. While the information was readily available to the public, should we be concerned with the ease of access to personal information online?
Brian Kernighan in his 2017 article, "Understanding the Digital World," notes that there is a constantly expanding database that stores about a zettabyte, or 10^21^ bytes, of online information. This heap of information, referred to as ["Big Data,"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data) can be utilized by companies, advertisers, or anyone else looking to gain information on individuals for any number of reasons. For example, information about your age, location, and online search history may be valuable to advertisers who can use the information to recommend products to you through targeted marketing.
You may not always realize the information that you may be sharing at all times. Your phone, which most likely is GPS enabled, can constantly track your location, especially if you have apps like Find My iPhone, Yelp, or Snapchat downloaded. While Snapchat makes it obvious that it tracks your location when you take a picture, your phone always keeps data, called metadata, about each picture that you take. I found that even pictures sent to me from friends still show me the phone model, geographic coordinates, date, and time when the picture was taken.
As a photographer, I am aware of metadata and what it can tell you about an image. However, I was intrigued if the data stored on RAW files transferred into the edited JPEGs that I publish online. Utilizing Adobe Bridge, I found that not only did the edited JPEGs possess all the information from the RAW file (focal length, shutter speed, etc.), but also all the edits to the photo that I made in Lightroom. ***gasps in exposed.*** All of this data is therefore available to anyone who downloads pictures from my online portfolio. While no geographic data is stored, my location could be found by looking in the background of images or the captions of images that are available to the online public.
![](https://i.imgur.com/MMv9IMF.jpg)
Most of us allow certain websites to store information about ourselves, but how can we prevent websites from storing data that we never permitted it to have in the first place? Cara McGoogan had [the same issue](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/08/09/how-did-facebook-get-my-number-and-why-is-it-giving-my-name-out/) when she found that Facebook had found her phone number by accessing her friends' phone contacts, and was allowing her profile to be found by searching her number. Now, even if Cara wanted to dissociate her number from her profile, Facebook could still hold the information in their database, as noted by Brian Kernighan. A good first step in regulating the spill of personal information to the public would be to update privacy settings on websites where you have an account. Additionally, adjusting which apps that can have access to information on your phone, deleting cookies that track your web browsing, and stripping photos of metadata are all good ways to increase what little privacy we may have online.
Even without Facebook, data can be put online without your knowledge. Sites like [intelius.com](https://www.intelius.com/people-search/Rudy-Gomez/MD?fullname=Rudy%20Gomez) highlight how much personal information is readily available to the public. I will not include the screenshots, but I was surprised to find that both of my parents' had information available on this website including age, phone numbers, and family members. I was not expecting this, considering the precautions that my family takes from putting personal information online.