Online reputation and digital footprint

It is important to understand the permanency of what is shared online, and the potential audience today and in the future. What we post adds to our reputation and what our family and friends, our teachers, our future employers think about us.

Digital life is both public and permanent. Something that happens on the spur of the moment for example a funny picture or an angry post, can be screenshotted and resurface years later.  

Though there are many benefits to sharing information online, everything you post online can become public. What you believe to be ‘private’ can be forwarded, re-posted, screenshotted or passed on making it suddenly public.

There are two main types of digital footprint:

• An active digital footprint is made up of your own online activity for example, photos or comments you post.
• A passive digital footprint is created when other people post about you online for example, a photo of you or a comment about you. You don’t necessarily have to be tagged for other people’s activity to contribute to your passive digital footprint.

You can find your digital footprint just by doing a search of yourself, using Google or another internet search engine. This is the information that other people will see if they do the same, for example a future employer, colleague or teacher.

Once you have done that, there are a range of tools available to help you keep track of your online reputation, including Google Alerts which will notify you of any new online activity related to your personal information, such as your name.