Digital Tattoos are Cool, Actually
This week, as I've continued researching privacy and safety online, I encountered a new term: digital tattoo. As opposed to a digital footprint (the term I'm more familiar with), I think the term digital tattoo better communicates the permanency of posting and sharing our lives on social media. A footprint can be pretty easily washed away or disfigured, but a tattoo isn't so easily reversible, and neither is it as easy to fully delete our personal details from the internet. I decided to investigate my own digital tattoo by performing a limited data mine on myself. I used several public record aggregator sites (also known as "background check" or "people finder" sites) to see what information they had on me. I also used the most popular search engines and browsers to search for my name and various usernames I've used in my life. A Public Record of "Private" Information I input my name and applied age/location filters on seven of the most p...