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![What is a Digital Footprint and Why is it important? [2024 Updated]](https://www.crawsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/What_is_a_Digital_Footprint__and_Why_is_it_important.jpg)
You might be thinking about what is Digital Footprint, as most of you might be hearing about it for the first time or you have a clue about it. However, in this article, you will learn about what a digital footprint is and how it works.
You know that most of us spend time online on online platforms, sharing our daily working posts. Sometimes that is enough for the perpetrator to steal our whereabouts and use it for illicit work. In this condition, we should know how to stop that.
Just like that, the digital footprint is as sensitive as our data. So, we need to know how to predict where we left our Digital Footprint and how we can protect ourselves from being victimized by a cyber attack caused by a digital footprint. Without further do, let’s hop into the topic.
A Digital Footprint is a tracked-down record of a user’s online activity. No matter what they have done online, that activity turns into the format of data that is known as a digital footprint.
Following are examples of digital footprints
Thus, in the future, that data can help acknowledge a person’s online behavior through the hours he/ she has spent online. These footprints work as information to build a smart portfolio of users’ likes and dislikes.
Many marketing companies use these footprints to acknowledge their consumer’s favorite items from the organization’s manufacturing product catalog. Businesses follow these footprints to know where the trend goes.
There, they send messages, links, schemes, and offers over user contacts to promote their products. That sometimes works for the company as a promotion. Now, why is digital footprint important? To know that, you can read the next few lines.
You can see its importance by how it works for you. It is your permanent online activity record. It can impact your social image, no matter if it’s online or offline. Anyone who follows your digital footprint can see your daily activities, such as
You must be aware of your digital footprint, as it can turn upside-down situations for you online.
Whenever a person does online activities such as – purchasing things, posting social media posts, making posts, uploading reviews, and commenting on others’ activities online, it creates data that is known as an active Footprint.
Through this, your online presence gets created, which can support organizations in building their brand.
It’s the data organizations collect when a user accesses a website or uses an online service. In the list of data collected by the organization, you’ll see
Via the Passive Digital Footprint, one can track a person’s behavior online. Moreover, this data helps organizations enhance their services/ products according to the market and users’ demands. Well, that’s a positive side of the digital footprint. Right?
| Now, the question is, what if your digital footprint gets into the hands of an unauthorized person?
● It can have both positive & negative impacts. ● If you think positively, it can offer positive promotion online create connections, and enhance the audience center of attention. ● Now, the negative side will show you a dreadful situation. Employers can find your online presence a bit embarrassing. Sometimes, cybercriminals can use your “DF” to scam you. ● Online data upload should be done if you are sure of what you are posting online. ● One can use Digital Footprint to a) Track and Observe people’s online activities and b) Can cause potential Privacy and Security Risks. ● It can also be used to deliver ads and promotional content online based on the user’s experience. ● Moreover, this can cause a dilemma in one’s life as it can give a chance to dilute your image by accusing the victim of false rumors and other stuff. ● It also impacts an individual’s job prospects and other opportunities, such as a) Employers, b) And other Decision-Makers (to evaluate potential candidates). |
If you want to prevent making your digital footprints over a website that you might not think is legitimate, use the following steps:
Following are the Digital Footprint Examples that can give you an idea of how such footprints are created:
If someone posts something online or on social media, it can become a digital footprint. Like photos, videos, comments, blogs, and many more.
Suppose you’re buying a product online and saving your data over the platform; it can become your digital footprint. That’s because your activities of purchasing and surfing through the portal have been recorded in the database of the website.
A forum is a platform that allows you to post about something you like or want to talk about. Comments and contributions to blogs and online discussions can leave a digital footprint.
When someone visits a website, their logging IP address is recorded in the website’s database and becomes a digital footprint.
Online Banking transactions and Queries can also create digital footprints.
Sending and receiving between a sender and recipient create a digital footprint for the users.
Surfing online can also become a digital footprint cuz it notes where the surfer has arrived.
Most criminals or critics use several techniques to create a Negative Digital Footprint against a person, company, or a thing that they don’t like. Such activities can ruin anyone’s image poorly and can contain ingrate hatred towards the individual.
Such posts can involve
2. What is a Positive Digital footprint?
A Positive Digital Footprint can impact our daily lives, our decisions, and our participation in things that include social influence. It helps us to build a vast network of happy audiences around us who regularly visit our posts for some kind of content they like to watch or follow. Such footprints include
Now, the positive digital footprint helps create trust and credibility with clients, teammates, and the general public.
You can take an active digital footprint as your brand building, which includes regular updates and maintenance while maintaining the online presence. In the process of an active digital footprint, the users self-post things, such as
4. What is a Passive Digital Footprint?
In this kind of digital footprint, a person’s data is posted by someone else, which creates an online presence for the user without their consent or knowledge. However, you’ll see yourself in the posts posted by someone else on their social media account, or sometimes it can be a fanbase page. Such posts include:
Sometimes users’ browsing history or location data can be the cause of their online digital footprint.
Well, that’s not fully impossible; however, it is impossible to destroy them fully. One of the ways to destroy your footprint on social media is to delete your accounts from websites. Another is that you can limit your online data sharing while using privacy settings to limit access to your data.
Of course, there are a huge number of websites offering data & resources related to digital footprints. Some of the websites are as follows:
Your Digital Footprint could be seen by anyone online. No matter who they are, Some of them could be
