Digital Tattoos

    I have thought about my digital footprint a lot in the past. Because I have had social media platforms since a very young age, I truly have no idea what could come up about me if I were to search. This week, I decided to do a data dig on myself. I started off with googling a common username I use as well as my full name in quotes. When googling my username, my Instagram account pops up immediately. When I googled my full name, only 2 links come up. I see a link to a page titled "People Living at" followed by my mom's entire address and a background check website that states my age. I haven't changed my last name yet, but I decided to try to google that name as well. When I do, Google shows me the same link with my mom's address as well as my own house's address. I have known for a few years now that it is this easy to find people's addresses and family members on the internet. However, it shocks me every time I see it.

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    While looking myself up on InstantCheckmate and Intelius, I see my name as well as my siblings and parents. Both websites state that I have lived in Arlington Heights, IL. I have never lived there or even worked there. I wonder where that comes from. Neither of these sites show my past workplaces. This may be because I have never had a LinkedIn account that states where I have worked.

    Next, I looked myself up on PeekYou. I am literally too embarrassed by the photo and username that come up to post a picture of the results. Both the picture and username were from my deleted twitter account from high school and college. I am honestly pretty shocked that either of those came up since that account was deleted so long ago. The picture and username are not inappropriate, but they are not something I would post as a 27 year old today. Seeing this was a good lesson in understanding that you cannot be sure the things you post will ever disappear.

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    Surprisingly, the website Spokeo had 7 different people named Alyssa Fuller in Illinois but none of them were me. People who can be found on this website will have their addresses listed. The site also provides a map to get to there. Although other websites give you the address and anyone can just plug it into their phone for directions, I am unsure why this website thought sharing that was necessary. It seems like a little much.

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    On Illinois Teacher Salaries, my name does not come up. This is probably because I did not enter the public school system until the 2019-2020 school year. Before that, I was working at a private grade school. This website claims the data is from 2018 so this makes sense. Looking other people's names up feels like a huge invasion of privacy even though this is public information. I have always been taught that it is not good manners to ask someone how much money they make. Maybe that is why this feels so uncomfortable to me.

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    The last data dig I did on my self was on a website called MyLife. This one states people's reputation scores as if it was a number that can be calculated like a credit score. It rates reputations out of a top score of 5. I am so curious what factors come into play when calculating this. This was by far the creepiest website I came across on my data dig. It required too much information to get the full report so I didn't see full details.

    Although I find it crazy that some of this information is so public, it really isn't all that surprising. Our name and addresses could be found in the yellow and white pages before there was the internet. I have been aware since a young age that anything you post on the internet can be permanent. As long as we are aware of our posts and what information is out there, social media platforms can still be used for great things.