Key Takeaways
Everyday online activities from liking a post to purchasing something online create your digital footprint.
Your online activity can reveal things about you, such as your location, personal connections and habits.
Data brokers build and sell profiles from this information, and scammers use it to make their approaches more convincing.
Your online activities create a digital footprint, a trail of data that shapes your digital persona. The sites you visit, the accounts you create and the posts you like may seem trivial, but collectively, they paint a detailed picture of your life.
What does your online activity reveal about you?
Your online activities leave behind a trail of publicly accessible data, often without you realizing it. Here’s what it can reveal about you:
Location: Geotagged social media posts, such as a photo tagged at a local coffee shop, publicly share where you are and where you like to go. Real-time vacation updates, like posting from a beach, broadcast your absence from home. Even public check-ins, such as leaving a review at a restaurant, create a digital map of your movements, making it easy for others to track your routines or current whereabouts.
Life stages and interests: Search queries, like “first-time homebuyer tips” or “retirement planning,” signal significant life events or financial priorities. Online form submissions, such as signing up for a parenting webinar or student loan resources, further highlight your interests or responsibilities. Public forum discussions, reviews of products or services and your social media likes, comments and followed accounts collectively paint a picture of your hobbies, values and lifestyle.
Relationships and connections: Social media tagging, such as mentioning friends or family in a post, publicly displays your personal network. Your public social media connection lists and group memberships, like joining a local hiking club’s page, reveal who you associate with and your community involvement. Additionally, public records, from property ownership to business registrations, can tie you to specific individuals or organizations, further defining your social and professional circles.
Who collects your digital footprint, and why?
Much of this information is gathered by the apps and websites you use, as it allows them to reach you with more relevant and timely ads and promotions. It is also used by data brokers and scammers.
Data brokers are companies that buy, combine and resell personal information. They link details from different sources using identifiers like an email address, a phone number or a device ID, then package the result as a profile. These profiles are valuable because they’re predictive: advertisers and marketers aren’t only interested in what you bought last week, but what you’re likely to buy next.
Scammers are after the same information for a different reason. Their goal is access to your money, your accounts or your identity. Having personal details about you makes that easier in two ways:
Their messages sound legitimate: A message that mentions your employer, a recent purchase or a family member’s name is far more convincing than a generic one. You’re therefore more likely to view the message as credible and respond.
They can answer your security questions: A first pet’s name, a hometown or a high school are commonly used to verify identity – and they’re also the kinds of details that people share openly online.
Why your digital footprint deserves to be protected
In the physical world, you take certain steps to protect yourself, which have likely become second nature. You lock the front door, keep your wallet in sight and think carefully before handing your keys to someone. Online, the same care is harder to maintain – and it’s often not clear what actions caused a break in security.
A good starting point is to think of your digital footprint the same way you’d think about your wallet: it contains sensitive information tied to your identity and bank accounts, so you must protect it. Here are some ideas to consider:
Review your privacy settings. Check to see who can view your posts, photos and profile details on the platforms you use the most and adjust anything set wider than you’d like.
Be selective with app permissions. Location, contacts, photos and microphone access are only worth granting when an app genuinely needs them.
Think twice before accepting cookies. Accept essential cookies for smoother browsing but limit third-party cookies that track activity across sites.
Share personal details sparingly. Birthdays, pet names, home addresses and schools are the same details used to verify your identity, so think about who can see them.
Close the accounts you’ve stopped using. Old profiles and dormant accounts keep holding your information long after you’ve moved on.
None of these steps take much time, and each one helps secure and reduce how much of your digital footprint is visible to others.
Tip: Adopt better cyber security best practices
Every piece of data you leave online gives cyber criminals more material to exploit. By following cyber security best practices – such as using strong, unique passwords, enabling multi-factor authentication and connecting only to private, secure networks – you actively safeguard your accounts and assets from evolving threats. Staying vigilant helps ensure your digital footprint does not become a liability.
For more ways to protect your information online, read our Digital Safety and Scams guide
FAQs
An active digital footprint is information you share deliberately, such as a social media post, a product review or a form you fill out. A passive digital footprint is information gathered without any direct action from you, like location data, browsing history or the device details a website records when you visit.
Start by searching your own name, including variations and past addresses or workplaces, and reviewing what comes back. From there, check the privacy settings and profile details on the accounts you use regularly, and look through any older accounts you’ve stopped using. Together, this can give you a reasonable sense of what someone could learn about you.
Removing it entirely isn’t realistic, since some information stays with companies and platforms you no longer control. You can reduce it, though, by closing dormant accounts, deleting old posts and tightening your privacy settings.
Data brokers collect information from public records, apps, websites and other companies, then combine it into profiles they sell. Buyers are typically advertisers and marketers who want to predict what someone is likely to want or do next. The information is gathered from many separate sources and linked using identifiers like an email address, a phone number or a device ID.
This article is intended as general information only and is not to be relied upon as constituting legal, financial or other professional advice. A professional advisor should be consulted regarding your specific situation. Information presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the authors as of the date of publication and are subject to change. No endorsement of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressly given or implied by Royal Bank of Canada or any of its affiliates.
