When it comes to talking about the digital world, you might bump into a word or an expression you have never read or heard of before. Digital footprint: have you ever heard about this notion? What do you think it may be? Today we are here to answer this very question.
Surely, the ‘digital footprint’ can be considered among those new terms and phrases. According to several sources (Webopedia, techterms.com, dictionaty.com), the digital footprint – or digital shadow – “refers to one’s unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions and communications that are manifested on the Internet or on digital devices.”
The digital footprint can be active or passive: if you are deliberatively leaving one or more of your credentials online (e.g. registering on a website), that would be considered as an active way of leaving a personal footprint on the internet; however, your data might be collected regardless of your will (e.g. you leave a ‘print’ of your IP address – a numerical label assigned to each device connected to a computer network). An example of passive digital footprint would be an e-commerce company registers the country of each customer’s IP address that browses its platform in order to improve the marketing campaign.
DLEARN is currently involved in a project, DIGIT, that aims to raise awareness about digital footprint addressing citizens.
The digital footprint is one of the new features brought by the Internet. The Internet Society (https://future.internetsociety.org/) 2017 report (“Paths to our digital future”) recognises certain principles, or abilities, which “underpin the social value that the Internet provides to the people”. The ability to:
- Connect: the ability to connect to any other point on the Internet without any barrier.
- Speak: the ability of the Internet users to speak freely, in a safe and secure manner.
- Innovate: the ability of developing services and programs, free of several restrictions.
- Share: it is directly related to the innovate ability, and the development of open source material that should be free to be used by anyone.
- Choose: the user must be able to choose any provider that would deliver the cheaper, better, and more innovative Internet service.
- Trust: lastly, the ability of relying on the Internet itself, in order to get a complete and positive experience online.
There are so many matters orbiting around the Internet, that we have only scratched the surface by mentioning the digital footprint and the possible issues related to it. DLEARN will continue to stay up-to-date on the dynamics of the digitalisation, and to tackle the thorniest issues concerning the Internet features which can somehow affect the world of Education.