I have a (data) shadow – my digital footprint

[suchona.kani.z]

Once a year I receive a particularly remarkable email.

It is an automatic reminder that my contact Max M.* has a birthday today and he would certainly be happy to receive congratulations from me.

What is in itself a nice service for people like me, who rarely write down birthdays and even more rarely remember them, is quite macabre in Max's case, because Max died over ten years ago.

What this situation shows
Digital identities can exist for a long time after they are created.

The same applies to many other digital pieces of information that can be related to real people. Once collected, they exist permanently and are only partially or not deleted at all without further action. This information about me or my digital actions is referred to as a "digital footprint" or "data shadow".


Online activities and devices can be traced back to a person via the venezuela consumer email list digital footprint. You can leave your footprint either actively or passively:

Active means everything that I (knowingly) reveal about myself, for example on social media.
Passive includes all information that is collected about me, for example through tracking my activities on the Internet.

How big is my personal digital shadow?
As a rule of thumb, you can remember the following: the more intensively the Internet is used, the larger the digital shadow becomes.

To get a first impression, I recommend simply googling yourself. The result will reveal information that is publicly available. This can range from newspaper articles with a name mentioned (second place in the 2004 B-youth table tennis tournament) to job portals (software developer looking for a job) to any kind of public self-portrayal that specifically matches the name you are looking for - for example, the publicly posted Amazon wish list or a review of the pond pump you recently bought. And of course all the results of the image search - including the photos that others have put online.


If you want to dig a little deeper, log in to relevant social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and you may receive further information about your digital identity(ies). The information that can be seen by other users varies depending on the provider. Some online services offer settings to restrict access to the stored data. But be careful: Although the data is not publicly visible, it still remains with the provider of the respective online service for an indefinite period of time.