What is a digital footprint?

A digital footprint is the record of all traceable activities you perform online when you use the internet under your IP address. It covers a very broad range of actions — from creating and using social media accounts and shopping online to browsing news sites and downloading apps — and is typically categorized into an active and a passive footprint.

All the information included in your digital footprint is linked to your IP address, allowing markets, insurers, and other organizations to create a precise profile based on your online behaviors and habits that can only be traced back to you. Unsurprisingly, your digital footprint is a valuable online commodity that can be used to target you with personalized ads, surveys, and other online content.

Although it can appear innocent enough, if your personal data ends up in the wrong hands, you can become a target of persistent ads and even be targeted in personalized scam campaigns like spear phishing. Cybercriminals understand how valuable large sets of digital footprint data are, so understanding how you create your footprint can help you be more aware of how to protect your personal information as well.

How is your digital footprint created?

Your digital footprint is created and adjusted any time you engage in online activity via your computer, phone, or tablet. You might not be able to pinpoint when your digital footprint started to take shape, but your daily online activity contributes to it both actively and passively.

What shapes your digital footprint isn’t always evident. Some websites gather information about your online activity with the help of cookies they place on your devices. Apps can also collect data in the background, using your GPS information or tracking the pixels you tap on the device screen.

Active digital footprint

An active digital footprint encompasses everything that you, as the user, do on a website, app, or other digital service. It’s essentially you taking a virtual stroll around the internet — any place you visit, you leave a trace. Active digital footprint components include:

  • Sharing posts on social media.

  • Uploading photos, videos, documents, and other files online.

  • Creating new accounts on websites and apps.

  • Adding personal details and payment information to profiles.

  • Installing new apps on a device.

  • Sending emails.

  • Making purchases on online retail sites.

  • Submitting information on surveys and forms.

  • Writing reviews and sending feedback.

You can control your active digital footprint and how broad it is. In some cases, you can reduce your footprint by deleting shared posts or accounts. However, this usually only removes part of the data, and some of your footprint remains. 

Passive digital footprint

A passive digital footprint covers actions that entities like moderators and apps can do with your data. Unlike with the active footprint, you can do little to influence or alter your passive footprint. The data usually correlates with how much time you spend on a website or an app, which parts you linger on the longest, or what IP address you browser with. A passive footprint is built from:

  • Browsers and apps that keep a record of your browsing activity.

  • Cookies on your device that track your habits.

  • Search engine history records.

  • Location tracking services.

  • Behavioral data trackers on social media.

  • Mouse and fingerprint input data.

  • Internet service provider (ISP) monitoring.

  • Email pixel trackers.

Examples of a digital footprint

Saying your digital footprint covers “a lot” is an understatement — it’s comprised of thousands of data points across your entire history on the internet. Even if you move and use the same websites under a different IP address, your user patterns can be linked back to the same footprint in a matter of hours. For ease of understanding, let’s break up your digital footprint into a few general categories.

Online shopping data

Online shopping data comprises a large chunk of the footprint related to your identity and financial information. It’s your buyer’s profile — what online retailers you use, whether you buy with or without an account, and what method you use for payment. Online shopping data includes:

  • Downloading, installing, and using shopping apps.

  • Creating an account on an online shopping site.

  • Making purchases.

  • Including a precise delivery address.

  • Signing up for coupons and discount deals.

Using your online shopping activity, advertisers can shape your passive footprint, suggest ads based on your browsing and purchase history, and push personalized offers.

Financial data

Financial data relates to all transactions and banking operations you perform online. It includes online purchases (overlapping with online shopping data), loan applications, and investments. Financial data is usually a valuable part of any user’s digital footprint because, if compromised, it can also be used in scams outside the internet. Financial data that contributes to your digital footprint is gathered through:

  • The use of online banking services.

  • Engagement in online investments.

  • Ordering and using new credit or debit cards.

  • Loan applications.

  • Third-party payment and fast transaction apps.

Some financial traces of your digital footprint, like e-banking operations, are limited to only the service providers’ knowledge, thanks to customer security mechanisms and KYC policies. Commercial banks use this information to build niche profiles of their clients and offer them personalized services. For instance, using the customer’s transaction habits and personal information like age, they can offer more precise mortgage terms or know when to start advertising retirement plans.

Social media data

Social media data has some of the most extensive contributions to your digital footprint. Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn encourage users to share personally identifiable information, like full names, general locations, employment status, and even familial relationships. You contribute to your social media footprint by:

  • Creating and using social media accounts on multiple devices.

  • Installing apps, plugins, and widgets related to social media platforms.

  • Connecting different social media accounts with each other, i.e., Facebook and Instagram.

  • Using your social media credentials for single sign-on on other platforms.

  • Sharing posts, photos, and videos.

  • Leaving likes and comments on other users’ posts.

Social media data extends beyond your own personal footprint and contributes to your friends’, peers’, and family members’ respective digital footprints as well.

Health and fitness data

Health and fitness data is often collected from leisure and activity devices like phones, GPS trackers, and smart watches. It’s usually tied to your physical information, like your age, weight, height, and activity level. Your fitness footprint is gathered from:

  • Fitness apps.

  • Specialized devices like smartwatches and smart rings.

  • Online healthcare sites.

  • Gym and training subscriptions registered under your name and email address.

Some of the health data related to your illnesses and treatments in your digital footprint is protected under HIPAA. However, these protections don’t cover third-party vendors, like commercial health apps and wearable devices.

Online reading and news data

If you like to start your day with the front page news or check on the stock market throughout the afternoon, you’re also contributing to your digital footprint. Based on your news data, crawlers can create a profile of your subjects of interest — for instance, whether you favor local news reports, financial updates, or celebrity gossip. Likewise, your online reading data can be used to determine your political views and demographic information. Online reading and news data covers:

  • Signing up for newsletters and digital news reports.

  • Reading articles on news websites and apps.

  • Reposting articles you read on social media.

  • Interacting with ads on news websites and apps.

  • Setting up live notifications for updates.

  • Logging reading data on platforms like Goodreads.

Why is your digital footprint important?

A digital footprint is important because, in most cases, it’s permanent and can have a lasting impact on your reputation, relationships, and even employment opportunities. Your posts on social media might be intended for friends and relatives, but sometimes they can spill out into the public eye. A potential employee can see your public accounts and thoroughly review your available digital footprint before deciding whether you should get the job you applied for.

Your digital footprint can also be used against you in extortion. A user with malicious intent can trace your social media posts and expose your personal information through doxing. Cybercriminals can also get hold of your information if they breach a platform with poor data protection. They can trace pieces of your digital footprint back to you, targeting you in spear phishing attacks. In some cases, they may attempt to commit identity theft.

The longer you’ve been around the internet, the more accounts you have, and the more actively you use it daily, the higher your digital footprint’s value goes. It can increase even further if you include your work-related accounts, especially if you log in to your personal social media apps while connected to your workplace’s internet. The footprint you create at home and at work can overlap, and, if mishandled, can become a very pricy target for criminals.

How to check your digital footprint

You can’t trace back your entire digital footprint yourself, especially the passive components. Tracing back each online activity and how it relates to one another would require thousands of hours — and likely create more footprint in the process.

Instead, you can simply use a digital footprint checker. It’s a dedicated tool that scans publicly available information, like social media platforms, digital records, and data breach databases, to find information that matches your identity. You can usually search for your legal name, username, credit card number, and passwords, but that depends on the provider you choose. 

For instance, Incogni’s digital footprint checker scans the web for your full name, home address, email address, and phone number and generates a report based on the results. Once you have this information, you can use Incogni to request data removals without needing to personally contact third parties yourself.

How to protect your digital footprint

Don’t underestimate how valuable your personal digital footprint is. Even if you think that your data alone might not be important, nothing is as lucrative for cybercriminals as having a massive bundle with thousands or even millions of data points. For easier digital footprint management, take a few active steps to change how you browse and use apps or devices with internet access.

Make use of privacy settings

Most online accounts have privacy settings to control how much of your data is shared publicly or with third parties. Take the time to review the privacy settings on your online accounts and adjust them accordingly. Additionally, check the privacy and security settings on your web browser, as well as the apps on your phone or tablets, and adjust them to limit data sharing and access permissions.

Think before you share

Any social media post, a message in the comment section, or a piece of information you share online grows your digital footprint. If you strive to manage your digital footprint, think before you share anything online. Before reposting, check your account privacy settings to know who can see it.

Terminate old accounts

According to a survey conducted by NordPass, an average person has around 168 accounts. Chances are you aren’t using every single one of them daily — in fact, you might even forget some of those accounts exist. Regularly review your accounts and permanently delete the ones you know you won’t use again to reduce your digital footprint. Thanks to data regulation laws like the GDPR, you can even contact the company with which you had the account and request deletion of your data from its servers.

Stay away from suspicious and potentially malicious websites

Imagine you land on a fake shopping website and make what you believe to be an actual purchase. Your digital footprint — in this case, the credit card data you provided — ends up in cybercriminals’ hands without you knowing it. Always make sure you double-check that the website is legitimate, especially if you need to create a new account and share personally identifiable information, like your full name, home address, and credit card details

Review privacy settings on your phone

Chances are you use the apps on your phone more than you visit the same websites on the desktop. Each time you install a new app, it requests access privileges. Some are innocuous enough, like asking for sufficient space and ability to send notifications. However, others can be more intrusive, needing access to your camera and microphone, location, internal files, and contacts.

To minimize what the apps can track and send out, review and adjust your privacy settings on your smartphone. Although many of these permissions are accepted by default, removing them usually won’t interfere with the app’s capabilities.

Create strong passwords and use a password manager

Strong passwords are crucial for your overall security and privacy online. Passwords protect our accounts and the data associated with those accounts from bad actors wishing to make a profit. Make sure your passwords are strong and unique, and change any weak ones. A strong password should be at least 15 characters long and use a mix of special characters, numbers, and letters.

Consider using a password manager to update your credentials more easily. A password manager like NordPass lets you securely store and manage passwords as well as improve your overall online experience with features like autofill and autosave.

Use a VPN

You can control some of your digital footprint by limiting how much of your data companies get in the first place. A VPN reroutes your online traffic through a secure server and protects your IP address from third-party servers, preventing websites and apps from connecting your browsing data to your existing footprint.

Be mindful of generative AI

Generative AI is a recent yet significant addition to building a digital footprint. GenAI models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok create responses based on users’ input and can personalize the answers the longer the user sends prompts to the service. The more personal information users provide, the bigger this AI footprint grows.

If you use generative AI, be mindful of what you share with it. Replace personal details with random names and numbers to prevent an extensive digital footprint from being built within the large language model (LLM).

Don’t forget your IoT and wearable smart devices

When you think of a digital footprint, you probably imagine a trail left in apps and websites. However, Internet of Things (IoT) devices and smart wearables hold a significant amount of identifiable data. Check the security policies of IoT tools you want to use, routinely clear out your data, and avoid using wearable devices extensively to reduce the amount of personal data it holds in case of a breach.

Dark web and digital footprint

Data breaches are among the biggest threats to your digital safety, and that includes the active and passive footprint. If your data is compromised and cybercriminals load it up on the dark web, other bad actors can trace it back to you and use the stolen intel to target you in more precise attacks. Common compromised data goes beyond your digital activity and can affect your identity, especially if information like your Social Security number and credit card details is breached.

According to NordPass’ data leak trends analysis, although the number of data leak incidents has gone down, the individual breaches tend to expose far more data. You can protect your personal data and digital footprint by following a few privacy-focused tips.

Don’t use Google or Facebook to log in to other websites

Single sign-on (SSO) using your Google or Facebook account is a quick and easy way to log in to services you use rarely, like e-commerce sites or mobile gaming apps. However, each time you access a service using these credentials, you give them permission to access and use your Google or Facebook data, which keeps your digital footprint going.

Instead, take the extra couple of minutes to create a new account and save its login details in your password manager so you can easily access them if you need them in the future without revealing more information through SSO.

Use a VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi hotspots

If possible, avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi hotspots in places like hotel lobbies or cafés without a virtual private network (VPN). Connecting to such a network carries inherent risks because you can’t know what security controls are in place and if anyone can intercept the network traffic. If using a public Wi-Fi is unavailable, always ensure you use a VPN to protect your traffic from snoopers.

Regularly update your software (and don’t forget your hardware)

Software updates improve user experience, introduce new features, and, most importantly, patch known security vulnerabilities. Using outdated or legacy software can put a target on your device — programs with unfixed security gaps can let cybercriminals gain backdoor access to the local file system. This can put your unencrypted data at risk of breaches. Always ensure you stay on top of critical software updates. In some cases, you might need to consider upgrading your devices as well to ensure they can run the latest app versions.

Bottom line

Everything you do online — from scrolling on social media to emailing your work colleagues — adds to your digital footprint. With our daily reliance on the internet for work, leisure, research, and organization, our footprints are bound to keep growing, and cybercriminals will find ways to go after them. So being aware of your online actions will help you keep at least some part of your digital footprint in check, maintain your online privacy, and stay more secure every day.