Digital Footprint: The Importance Of Caring For It And Caring For Your Reputation

Digital footprint: The importance of caring for it and caring for your reputation

 The fingerprint is a concept that incorporates all the records and traces that people leave when using the Internet.

These records represent information that can serve third to earn money or know preferences and be able to better sell their products.

In most cases they are beneficial to the user, but in others they can really be harmful.

The fingerprint is one of the issues that most concern users and companies, since it directly affects their safety and privacy.

But do you know what the fingerprint means and why it is important to manage it correctly? Keep reading.

What is the fingerprint?

Experts define it as the trail that the person is leaving after navigating and interacting on the network, which collects all their information.

It could be said that online behavior is: what people seek and publish, where and what is based on doing so. In this way, all records are part of the online history.

This information can be seen by other people or stored in a database;That is why you should know that everything you do on the network is recorded.

Ways to leave the fingerprint

When you navigate and visit a website, you deliver concrete information to the owner of that page. The IP of the team, for example, reveals the geographical location and even the last place you have visited.

These data do not involve an intrusion in your privacy, since your data is usually statistical.

They are used to create buyer or visitor profiles at a certain site.

For their part, the websites, leave a code in your browser that is known as cookie. Cookies stay there until you choose to erase them.

Otherwise, cookies can contain many types of data and generate, from them, surprisingly complete profiles with your personal information beyond the statistical.

The fingerprint and the big data

Every time you move through the network you end up promoting the industry known as Big Data.

The management of this, leads many companies to hire specialized personnel that can carry out an analysis to generate profiles, thanks to new management and process tools.

In the same way, all those analysis actions that you take on your customer data must be under timely security measures.

Never lose sight of the fact that if you do not analyze the digital footprint of your customers, someone will do it for you.

Threats to digital identity

The accumulation of user data, formed from the trail that is left when visiting a website, is increasingly valued by cybercriminals.

Being able to reach this data for illicit uses has become a very dangerous and lucrative business. These are threats:

Identity fraud

We have already talked about identity impersonation. There are users who could use your photos to create false and unauthorized profiles, especially on social networks. This type of threat is more frequent among personal users than between companies.

Data leakage

Its objective is to damage the image and prestige of a company or personality, since the information that escapes is confidential and sensitive.

Service denial attacks (DDOS)

If a company servers are used in a cyber attack of this type, its reputation can be very affected.

Can you erase your fingerprint?

That is almost impossible because the records will always remain. What you can do is be aware that everything you publish on the Internet will remain for years, even if you delete it.

You should also be careful whenever you access a web portal and before publishing any personal information.

If you want to improve your online privacy or need to eliminate something difficult that you uploaded in the past, you must be patient. It is a process that can take a long time.

However, there are instruments and experts that are responsible for doing this task. Many companies go to this service when it comes to eliminating the fingerprint or any record in case of death of a client or employee for example.

The intention will always be to protect intimacy, privacy and reputation, being able to eliminate any trace on social networks, websites, email accounts and other personal information.

Reasons why you must take care of it

There is no doubt that the appearance and use of social networks has led to more and more personal information on the Internet.

Privacy policies, for example of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn make you believe that, as a user, you are free to determine what you want to be public and what does not.

But the truth is that everything is interconnected and everything that is stored, shared and public.

Hence the need to be cautious before publishing. It is also important to determine a correct configuration of privacy in your networks.

Experts say that another entrance door to your personal information is smartphones, since photographs and lists of contacts, passwords, applications that involve private data, location etc. are stored in them.

Taking into account the above, it is essential to take care of your fingerprint.

Conclusion: Take care of privacy

Digital record is like your fingerprint. This identifies and individualizes. It is also very useful to facilitate communication and carry out many procedures that could only be done on paper before.

Therefore, to take care of it and avoid problems, it is very important to be aware of its importance and properly safeguard privacy.

Never give your data on sites that seem suspicious. Nor do you offer too much information on social networks. Suspect and always use common sense.