What Is a Digital Footprint?

A digital footprint is the collection of data online that can be traced back to a single user. An active digital footprint refers to a person's publicly available data, such as a social media profile. In contrast, a passive digital footprint refers to private data points, such as online purchases, that might be shared among private data brokers. While organizations use a person's digital footprint for marketing, personalization, and other experiences, bad actors can also use this information to imitate or target an individual. Educating your team about digital footprint management is an essential part of your security program.

When you interact with anything online, whether that’s using a digital device on a network or posting on social media, you create a trail of data. Some of this data is intentional, like leaving a comment on a post. Other forms of data, such as the history of websites you visit and pages you interact with, are unintentional. Here are the main types of data that form part of a digital footprint.

Browser and search data

Browsing the internet creates a trail of data, with every website and page you visit, alongside every search engine query you make, logging data. Most of the time, your browser and search data are used by marketing companies to push targeted advertising. By knowing more about what you search for and what topics interest you, companies can better personalize the marketing content you receive online.

Third parties may collect information on your browsing habits over time to form a profile that details your interests and online behavior.

Social media activity

Social media platforms collect a vast amount of personal data, both voluntary and involuntary, that you produce over time. Posts you make, comments you write, and content you interact with all form a permanent log of information for social media companies. Alongside this data trail, any profile data information you submit, such as your name, location, birthday, and so on, also forms part of your digital footprint profile.

Social media sites typically use your digital footprint to better understand the content you would like to see, promoting different content to you and aligning advertising and visible content with your preferences.

Device and network information

When you connect to the internet from a specific device, that device’s type, IP address, network connections, and operating system all become part of your digital footprint. The devices you use can allow websites and applications to adapt their content to best suit you. In some cases, cybersecurity tools also use device information as a potential indicator of suspicious behavior.

For example, if, as an employee, you suddenly start browsing with a strange device from a country you don’t normally browse from, that might indicate a compromise to your company.

Transaction and financial data

Online transactions, subscriptions you make each month, and your full purchase history also form part of your digital footprint. When shopping online through third-party systems, all of the financial data you produce can become part of their internal logs. Knowing what items you buy and use frequently helps provide better personalization. However, if these companies are ever involved in a breach, your sensitive data may also be compromised.

Location data

Location data, such as where you connect to the internet from, GPS positions, and IP addresses, can also all form part of your digital footprint. Certain applications, like health or fitness apps, use this data continuously throughout the day, collecting a huge amount of location tracking information. There are positive digital footprint implications here, such as services in your area being able to advertise to you. However, location data is also private, making it high-risk information if it were to be shared or misused without your consent.

Although "digital footprint" is a catch-all term for the data you produce, there are two main types to understand.

Active digital footprint

An active digital footprint refers to any information that you intentionally create online. You have complete control over your active digital footprint, as it involves any data you post, such as your name, comments on social media, uploaded photos or videos, emails and messages you send, or profiles you have online. Your active digital footprint includes non-public information shared with the company.

Typically, by navigating to the security and privacy section of any digital sites you use, you can edit how much information you share online. By adding privacy measures or reducing your profile visibility, you can actively decrease your digital footprint. This is an important security measure, as by restricting access to the public, you can also help to prevent any malicious entities from seeing and using that information.

Passive digital footprint

A passive digital footprint is any data you create without the intention to create that data. Navigating to a website creates a data point, clicking on certain items generates information, and your dwell time is another piece of information that can be logged.

Most of the time, the individual who is browsing won’t be aware of the passive digital footprint they create.

Because passive footprints are less visible, they’re harder to control directly. Where possible, you can disable tracking cookies and limit application visibility into your accounts to prevent unnecessary data collection.

Digital footprints matter because they’re a near-permanent record of your online activity. When something is logged to these records, it’s very difficult to remove them. This permanence is why a digital footprint is also sometimes called a digital shadow.

Here’s why individuals should try to better understand the digital footprint they leave behind.

Privacy protection

Understanding the information you create online gives you a better idea of how you can protect it. Knowing that social media accounts have privacy configurations that you can change to produce less publicly available content can help you control what you share online. Adjusting your privacy settings and limiting unnecessary sharing can prevent your public information from becoming widely public. Reading new privacy policies and understanding the implications of business mergers and acquisitions on your data are also important.

Cybersecurity risk management

Social media posts and profiles are a large source of information for malicious actors. Accounts with few privacy controls can allow groups to collect information, helping them to build convincing spear phishing campaigns. Internet users who have information such as who their friends are, or who is in their family, are easier targets when developing phishing attacks.

It’s important to protect personal information online, even if you think it may be low-value or unrelated information.

Online reputation management

Information that lives on public internet sites is typically in the public domain forever. Something that you uploaded years ago can resurface later, impacting your digital reputation and reflecting poorly on you. Thinking before posting something publicly online is a good way to protect your future reputation.

Regulatory compliance

Although many people focus on their digital footprint from a personal perspective, companies also have footprints that follow them. If an employee uses a company account, websites collect information on their browsing. Understanding how interacting with the internet generates data can put employees in a better position to protect their companies.

Considering many companies operate within heavily regulated parameters, understanding the concept of a digital footprint can reduce the risk of organizational liability.

After becoming aware of your digital footprint, there are several strategies that you can employ to reduce and better manage your digital presence.

Control data sharing settings

Editing data sharing settings is one of the easiest ways to limit the visibility of personal information online. Restricting what information companies collect from your online browsing or posting will directly reduce your digital footprint.

Use privacy-focused tools

Privacy tools, like virtual private networks (VPNs), encrypted messaging applications, and secure browsers, all reduce the total amount of information that third parties can gather from you. For example, a VPN hides your IP. Using these tools where possible, especially when on social media platforms, helps control your footprint.

Regularly audit online accounts

Privacy settings can change with updates, so conduct regular audits to make sure your configurations are as you expect. Where possible, scan through a list of your online accounts to help reveal sites you no longer use. Delete inactive accounts, remove or archive old information, and delete any services you no longer use. These actions all minimize your digital presence.

Implement security best practices

Following best practices, like using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, helps protect your online accounts. Although having a public account might reveal some information, if a malicious actor gains access to your accounts, they’ll have direct access to everything. Protecting your accounts by following security best practices helps reduce the likelihood of a more significant breach or data event.

Understand platform policies

When you sign up for a new account or navigate to a new page, you’re likely presented with information on how that company collects data. Spend the time to review that agreement and any related settings, which can help you make conscious decisions about what data you provide. This practice can significantly reduce the size of your digital footprint.

AWS offers a range of services to help manage your organization’s cloud security and how users interact and move within your environments. Employee training in digital footprint minimization should be a high priority. Here are some AWS solutions to help with identity management and service monitoring:

AWS CloudTrail allows you to track user activity and API usage on AWS and in hybrid and multicloud environments.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) helps you manage and scale workload and workforce access, securely supporting your agility and innovation in AWS.

AWS Security Hub prioritizes your critical security issues and helps you respond at scale to protect your environment. Security Hub unifies security operations by centralizing visibility across your cloud environment and detecting critical issues by correlating and enriching signals into actionable insights.

Get started with digital footprint management on AWS by creating a free account today.