Digital Feet's corner
What is a digital footprint?
We can think of it as traces we leave behind through our online activities
Think about your social media posts, your comments, the emails you've sent.
It’s your unique online presence. Sometimes intentional data, like a picture posted online, or sometimes unintentional, like the information that picture says about you (camera model, geolocation).
A look at a profile can tell us so much about a person. Let’s say you’re an employer looking to hire us in your company. This employer might choose to do what most hiring folks do these days: google the potential employee, a phenomenon called cybervetting. If they see our latest social media post saying how we hate their company, do you think we will get hired?
On the bright side, our digital footprint shouldn’t just scare us from making controversial posts. There are things we would like to save.
Look at digital hands’ comment on our post! They’re our friend and we miss them dearly.
If facebook were to close their website tomorrow, or just lose some data, what would happen with that comment from our friend?
We should be working towards having more agency of our online records. We should be worrying about protecting our digital presence from digital decay! Now keep browsing this website for tools on how to do just that!
References
https://digitalriskinc.com/active-passive-digital-footprints/
(Michael Fertik and David C. Thompson, 2015)
By Geraldine Solorzano Piedrahita
UT Austin, School of Information, Intro to Electronic/Digital Records
Spring 2026