My Results: Your Information Footprint
Learn About Online Privacy
Periodically search for yourself using a search engine to see what information others can see about you. Try using multiple search engines, as well as including an image search. Make sure to perform the search using a private browsing window as search engines customize results if you’re signed in, and/or based on what results you’ve clicked in the past.
Adjust Your Privacy Settings
Review your privacy settings on your social media and other accounts and on your apps and communication devices, to make sure you're sharing what you want to share. Use these guides to help you identify and change the settings most important to you:
- Directory of Resources for Managing Your Settings: Privacy Settings How-To's
- Worksheet: Managing Your Footprint: A Privacy Settings Checklist (pdf)
Check your privacy settings for non-telecom devices and programs that record information about you, like DVRs, fitness and health tracker devices, smart-home systems, vehicle health/activity loggers, transit and parking cards, and store rewards cards.
- You can start by searching on "privacy settings" or "privacy choices" and the name of the device or program.
Resources to Learn More About the Topic
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Offline Activities Leaving Online Footprints
- Explanations, Advice, and Resources About How Information Gets Online: You Can't Avoid Having an Information Footprint by Not Going Online
- Overview of How Our Stuff Is Coming Online: What Is the "Internet of Things"? (Article) / (Audio)
- Explanation of RFID, One of the Main Ways Devices Communicate: How RFID Works
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What's In Your Footprint
- Explanations, Advice, and Resources About Your Information Footprint: Your Information Footprint Is Larger Than You Think
- Extensive Explanation and Tutorials on How Footprints Are Built and How to Manage Them: Your Digital Footprint
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Inference and Location Data
- Research Paper on "Cybercasing" Using Geotagged Photos: Cybercasing the Joint: On the Privacy Implications of Geotagging (pdf)
- What Can Be Learned from Your IP Address: IP Location
