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# Privacy Footprint
With [3.5 million](https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media) people online, it is the norm to be on social media, whether it be on [Facebook](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-reaches-238-billion-users-beats-revenue-estimates-in-latest-upda/553403/), [Twitter](https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/), or [Instagram](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/). However, as the world becomes more connected and technology improves, privacy has become a larger issue. When I created my first Instagram account in 2013, I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that my posts were permanent; even if I deleted them, they would be tied to me forever. Users' [digital footprints](https://techterms.com/definition/digital_footprint) include not only social media posts, but also the websites visited, emails sent, and information submitted online. With the innovation of geotagging and GPS cell phones, users' footprints now expand beyond the digital realm; Kernighan (2017) argued "It's harder and hard to avoid leaving a trail of every place you've been."
## Facebook
It is frightening to see how much information people can garner about you online without you knowing. For instance, Facebook can link a user to their phone number without the user's consent. The site imports contacts from user's phones and matching the number to a profile. As long as you have someone's phone number, you can find their Facebook profile, which includes their full name, school, and even their residence. Criminals can use "randomly generated phone number" searches to "build up a profile about individuals" (McGoogan, 2016).
Unlike Instagram, I only acquired a Facebook account at the end of my senior year and was vigilant about checking the privacy settings—with the majority of my posts and personal information is available only to my friends. What I dislike about Facebook is that, by default, the site makes most everything public; therefore it is viewable in Google search results to everyone on Facebook, even if they are not your friend. For [minors](https://www.facebook.com/help/473865172623776), however, Facebook is more apt to educate them about the danger of sharing things publically. By default, their location settings are toggled off and warnings pop up reminding them about privacy.
## Google Search
Beyond social media, a myriad of other information about your surfaces on the web. When conducting a simple google search for my name: Chloe Evans, it does not yield much personal information (as my name is relatively common).
![](https://i.imgur.com/Pu57kmh.jpg)
The first ten pages or so are all unrelated to me. However, when the search becomes more specific and includes my high school, actual photos of and articles about me will appear. One would have to know a relatively unique fact about me, such as where I went to high school, my phone number, or where I lived if they wanted to search for me on Google. If I were to be arrested and it were to go on a [public record](https://www.peoplefinders.com/public-records), it would be accessible by anyone with an internet connection. Other sites like [Intelius](https://www.intelius.com/) also provide users with information about others, such as their age, phone number, where they've lived, relatives, education, and past employment. Even more information could be presented for a small fee. Fortunately, Intelius did not find much about me besides my age—there was, however, more information about my mother which was alarming.
![](https://i.imgur.com/JRdS1xH.png)
From there, anyone could collect enough information about me and find my Facebook or Instagram profile. This kind of intelligence may be beneficial to possible employers, but others with malicious intent can use these sites to target certain people. In the United States, it is legal for companies and organizations to collect and distribute information about you as they please without your consent.
When searching for anything, whether it be for a definition or your name, there is a plethora of information sent out with each request: "the IP address, the page you were viewing, the type and version of the browser, the operating system, and the language." Each search contains immense information that could be used to pinpoint your identity. This could be seen in the 2006 AOL release of query logs. People were able to identify others based on their unique identification code and pattern of queries. Although AOL had good intentions, they unknowingly violated their users' privacy, learning that it is "impossible to anonymize data." Although the logs were quickly taken down, they still exist on the internet because "once on the web, information is always on the web" (Kernighan, 2017).
## Browser
Mentioned earlier, phones and advanced cameras can tag photos and identify where the picture was taken. This is beneficial for personal memories, but when photos are posted on social media, people can use geotags to track down where you live. Sites like "[What every Browser knows about you](http://webkay.robinlinus.com/)" can tell you where and when your photo was taken. Fortunately, when I tried the service, none of my iPhone photos had geotags and just had the time and the date of when the photo was taken. "What every Browser knows about you" also informs you of all the data that any website can access without permission. Your location, what social media you're logged into, hardware, software, battery percentage, IP address, connection, and so much more can easily be accessed by anyone. Surprisingly, it says I am logged into Flickr even though I am not part of this social media platform.
![](https://i.imgur.com/r0K4c5V.png)
With more advanced technology, hackers and criminals can gain access to your information and extort you for money, steal your identity, or engage in other unsavory activities.
## Google
Google is not only a search engine, but also a popular platform that supplies users with a myriad of resources such as email, Google documents, Google sheets, and Google slides. When evaluating my Google privacy, using my Northeastern account, I do not have access to my timeline and location history and there is no data for my search history. What I did find interesting is that personalized ads are on by default, thus allowing companies to use cookies and other means to track you across sites and tailor advertisements based on your interests. Kernighan (2017) found that "well over half of the frequently visiting sites [have] tracking mechanisms on them" with many sites having multiple.
![](https://i.imgur.com/6TMrfHQ.png)
Users can access the services described above anywhere from any device, all they need is an internet connection and their credentials. Before the existence of the cloud, programs, such as Microsoft word, were stored on the user's computer and could only be accessed by said computer. Now, the cloud offers the ease and convenience of not being attached to one device. However, who owns the documents and the words on them? Google? The user? Who has the right to distribute them? If the documents were leaked, should Google be held responsible?
Overall, who is responsible for your privacy? Although you have some control over what people see online, it is inevitable to manage what others post about you without your consent. It has become nearly impossible to exist without a digital footprint and become harder and harder to maintain it. Perhaps the loss of privacy is the price we have to pay for living in an increasingly digital world.