Your Digital Footprint Online

In short: Your digital footprint covers all the traces a person leaves on the internet, from photos and comments to data about their browsing behaviour. Much of it remains findable for a long time and is hard to remove again.

In more detail: A distinction is made between active traces, which you deliberately publish yourself, and passive traces, which arise more or less incidentally when you use services and websites. Together they can give a fairly detailed picture of a person.

In detail

• Active traces: Posts on social networks, profile details, reviews, forum comments and uploaded photos are shared deliberately, but are often visible to many people.
• Passive traces: Visited pages, location data, search queries and clicks are often recorded by services and advertising networks without you noticing directly (cookie-banner-und-tracking-verstehen).
• Traces left by others: Friends, family or clubs can also publish photos, tags or names that add to your own footprint (recht-am-eigenen-bild).
• The internet forgets little: Deleted content can live on as a screenshot, a copy or in archives, so it is worth thinking for a moment before posting.
• Checking for yourself: If you search for your own name from time to time, you can see what information others can easily find about you.
• Privacy settings: Many apps and networks let you decide who may see your posts, friends lists or location; it pays to review these settings regularly.
• Being sparing with data: Not every form needs every detail, and not every app needs access to your contacts, camera or location (personenbezogene-daten).
• Clearing out old accounts: Profiles and accounts you no longer use are better deleted than simply left lying around.
• Using your rights: In the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation gives people, among other things, the right to information about stored data and, under certain conditions, the right to have it erased (betroffenenrechte-nach-dsgvo).