What is Digital Footprint & Risks Associated With It ?

When the Internet came into existence in 1983, the world saw a complete change and the most remarkable transformation of all time. The Internet, which is a fast, increasingly complex technology, is also a key element in our lives, supported by social networks and intelligent devices.

“More than 50% of the world population is now online, about a million people go online for the first time a day, and two-thirds of the world’s population has mobile devices,” says the Global Risk Report (World Economy Forum) 2020.

Digital Footprint

When a person/user interacts on the web, he leaves a trail of information behind every time they use digital technology to do something online, known as a digital footprint. A digital footprint can be defined as data on human-cyber interaction. In its broadest sense, the trace of anything a sensor record is a digital footprint (Cheng et al. 2017).

Business organizations with an online presence leave a digital footprint while online, but this article examines the importance, expansion, and associated risks of an individual’s digital footprints.

Douglas Rausch (the director of the cybersecurity program at Bellevue University) states that “As you move through networks, you are leaving a footprint everywhere you go.” A digital footprint is a data trail that contains private and public data of an individual.

How Do You Create Digital Footprint?

Internet is a cosmos of data that leaves its digital mark when users use the Internet by generating (through) operational data (explicit) and passive (implicit) data. There is no harm in creating such data, as you will no longer exist in the world today if you do not have a digital footprint in the coming years. The digital footprint is now known in that 21st Century as a priceless asset (like 18th Century Oil), but the fear that evil people might misuse information for unwanted purposes raises the problem.

Active and Passive Data Generation

When Internet users communicate with, or use a social media platform such as Facebook, or call telecommunications by instant messages, voice calls, online services or mobile app, or send electronic mails, etc., such express acts are known as the production of operational data (in the belief that they are private).

In contrast, passive data is generated when the users stop on websites which do not require explicit action from the user but may be collected by a third-party / data collector from Web browsers or other sources for their use, such as by web marketers in order to protect the standard of services and product currently provided by the web for digital marketing or for other purposes. There are two types of passive participation: (1) platform-generated data as a by-product of online user behavior; and (2) other user-linked data (Micheli, Marina & Lutz, Christoph & Büchi, and Moritz. (, 2018).

What Is The Advantage And The Benefits Of The Digital Footprint?

It is interesting to be aware that various digital images, such as smartphones and tablets, appear to offer very various footprints from laptops and desktop computers when using the Internet.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4ir) created an environment where disruptive technology and trends, including the Internet of Tips (IoT), robotic technology, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI), change how we live and work “(as noted by the World Economic Forum, Justice Dr. Syed Refaat Ahmed) states. He shares his affirmatory view that 4IR technologies will transmute the economies and societies in the present era, taking control and taking control of their parallel digital lives.

Indeed, it is true that users run their computers themselves but conduct their operations in a gigantic theatre known as cyberspace (the fifth war theatre, according to George Thomas, senior advisor at PwC Bermuda) that can record and redistribute anything said or done. The trails of the consumer’s digital fingerprints are stored forever on the Internet; it is essential in this digital era to use the Internet safely and conscientiously to create an online reputation.

Individual User:

When people turn up and start using mobile devices, digital footprints come in handy and make life easier without logging inside or sending their personal information to websites repeatedly. Also, it helps to search and explore similar issues by appearing and showing to get better online interactions that are sometimes helpful.

Web Marketers:

The web marketers use these data either for commercial or other reasons as a digital marketing provider that needs to be aware of and expand to enhance the customer service items that the customers are interested in. These data analyses provide organizations with ample information to advance services.

Recruiters:

Recruiters use digital footprints for ‘cyber vetting,’ a process in which the recruiter checks the online activities of the candidates in order to assess their suitability.

Law Enforcement, Computer Forensics, and Private Investigators Agency:

The law enforcement agency is in a position to investigate crimes by tracking the suspect and victim’s digital trails. In order for the agencies to maintain the environment secure and deter crimes by intelligent, creative technology, digital footprints are an important advantage.

Privacy

It is clear that access to user data enables law enforcement and others to know their location quickly. Digital footprint has a remarkable security effect, but tracking every step raises privacy concerns.

User data transfer is tracked electronically. It also takes place in public places, such as monitoring user physical movements on a regular basis, and there is a security camera for safety and safety in the city, at work, in the stores, at the stores, etc. And if you use smart cards in addition to bank cards, it becomes simpler. To some extent, appropriate steps can be taken to deter such actions, but it is a matter of how tightly water is. Personal data are used, on the other hand, to produce income without consumer awareness.

How Are These Digital Footprints Stored And Where?

Even removed from search history, website cookies, social media, and e-mail data, and so on, the digital footprints are processed differently according to the form of data. No solitary online data depository is available for the user to open it to see where and what it is saved. Data are saved in a non-tangible virtual space called “Cloud.” When the information is stored in the cloud, it is indeed passed on to providers who have data centers in different locations, countries, and continents to store the data. But it’s hard to grasp where the data is processed for a general citizen. But large businesses such as Amazon, Google, and others can collect and analyze data from users as this big data sector is an evolving industry.

What Are The Laws In India To Protect The Digital Footprint?

In most situations, people don’t worry about public information because it is open to the general public. Still, the alarm strikes, if the private/personal details of a person secured from a public view are disseminated without another person’s consent or permission.

In the Indian Constitution, a right to privacy has not been expressly stated; however, Indian courts have found that there is a right to privacy in accordance with Article 21 and freedom of speech and expression under Art 19(1) (a). Nonetheless, India has an IT Act of 2000 (“IT Act”), and it’s corresponding IT (Reasonable of Security and Procedures and Confidential Personal Data and Information) Rules of 2011 (‘Information Technology Rules’) regulations for data protection and privacy. These new laws do not provide a broad description of personal data and have certain limitations.

The Indian Government understood that the Internet does not respect national limits and violates the fundamental rights to freedom of the individual, i.e., the privacy of its citizen, which everybody can impede. The collection of codified data protection or privacy laws became imperative. The Government recently introduced the Personal Data Privacy Bill 2019 to protect and track how the data fiduciaries can process and store individuals’ personal information (and document the rights of individuals concerning their personal data). The data trustees are individuals or organizations, such as the Government, companies based in India, and international companies that are responsible for customer’s personal data in India.

What Are The Consequences Of Digital Footprints?

The user should be more careful in using and not share the digital footprint because of the risk of cyberbullying, identity theft, humiliation, and embarrassment exist as well as privacy infringement. Users should be mindful that uploading content can pose hazards that might be unacceptable or controversial as the trail is left behind. And these data trails will continue in the future to the users. Interestingly, a digital footprint is stored in offline files (cookies which is pieces of code but not software, but which are used by any hacker), which allow access to the navigation sessions for users to spy on or commit cyber-crime (called “cookie-hijacking”), whereby the user should be cautious about the use of the Internet cafes and cookies.

There is a fundamental cybersecurity problem, but it is simply a question of how well it is handled. The more these devices are used, the greater the digital footprint, and more possible opportunities are generated for cybercriminals to take advantage of it.

How Is Digital Footprint Managed?

• It is necessary to raise the consciousness of digital footprint (or to know it) in order to make these environments conscious if a consumer conducts any behavior in digital environments.

• Keep software up-to-date to prevent viruses and malware from mining the digital footprint.

• See social media pages for confidentiality settings. When you view your profile, make sure you know exactly what the public sees.

• Be aware of the privacy settings on the phone apps and what others will share with you.

• Remember what you are doing and don’t want to hear from others and act in line (the Internet is not as private as it appears – they can’t see if it doesn’t exist).

Conclusion

In our everyday life, we swipe the Internet through gulps by necessarily using it for refreshment, entertainment, and even if necessary. Since we breathe and live in a world of great data, it is important to learn the value of internet security and reduce the digital footprint, to put the right impression in the network, after all! The digital footprint is highly vulnerable and has a wide range of threats, making it a risk identification and security action for an internet user.

Security of data protection and privacy is now a global problem for all nations. This is the time for us to be responsible; the European Union has taken the move and made it a popular move (by showing the global associations that we must stand on the same page to stand up as such) through the General Data Protection Regulation (2018).