Digital Footprint: Exploring Risks and Benefits in the Digital Age

This report examines the concept of a digital footprint, defining it as the trail of data created by a user's online activity. It explores both the advantages and disadvantages of digital footprints, highlighting potential benefits such as opportunities for job searching, and risks such as identity theft and financial fraud. The report emphasizes the importance of managing digital footprints in the face of increasing cyber threats, and discusses how these footprints can impact an individual's life. It references academic sources to support its analysis, providing a comprehensive overview of digital footprints and their implications for personal and organizational digital security. The report underscores the need for proactive measures to protect personal information and maintain online privacy.

Running head: DIGITAL PRIVACY AND SECURITY
Digital Privacy and Security
Topic: Digital Footprint for Individuals and Organizations
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DIGITAL PRIVACY AND SECURITY
What is the issue?
Digital footprint is usually defined as a trail of data that particularly is created while a
user is online or is using the internet. During the entire browsing over the internet, all the
websites that a person visits or any information that is submitted online or even if the
information sent or received all submitted and captured to contribute to the digital footprint of
a particular individual user (Buchanan). Every digital footprint is audited about every
individual internet user as their information, even if it is converted is visible on the internet.
Digital footprint can be considered as an issue as the public information shared over the
internet is visible to everyone and the digital footprint of a particular user can contribute to be
a prospective vulnerable information to breach into by a malicious hacker.
What are the pros and cons of the issue?
An example of one of the possibilities of digital footprint becoming advantages is
when a possible employer notices a user with their visible information on a job searching
website (Arya).
On the other hand, the person having public information shared over social media
website can be used by malicious hacker cybercriminal for identity theft or other
transactional theft.
Why is the issue important?
This issue is extremely important over several years now since the infiltration of the
malicious cyber criminals have increased at an alarming rate and information or data
breaches are becoming a vulnerable cyber asset that can be used against any user.

2DIGITAL PRIVACY AND SECURITY
How might the issue impact your life?
The vulnerability that is caused either makes a person be snatched out of their own
identity or they can even find that by using their own transactional data a malicious hacker
has taken out all the money from the bank account through online services. To protect one's
personal identity it is extremely important that the digital footprints are taken care of so that it
does not impact negatively on the life of an individual user.

3DIGITAL PRIVACY AND SECURITY
References
Arya, Vikas, Deepa Sethi, and Justin Paul. "Does digital footprint act as a digital asset?–
Enhancing brand experience through remarketing." International Journal of Information
Management 49 (2019): 142-156.
Buchanan, Rachel, et al. "What do students understand about digital footprint management?
Examining social media education for career guidance." AARE conference. 2016.