Kavya Pratapa

All of my life I have been known as ‘Kavya Pratapa’. I initially

What comes up when I google 'Kavya Pratapa'

adopted this abbreviated version of my birth name to make navigating the social boundaries of school easier. Using ‘Kavya’ allowed my teachers, my friends, and my classmates to know who I was, since they could actually say my name. In a world where our name is a large part of our identity, I believed that being known as ‘Kavya’ made my identity, both offline and online, much more pronounced. In fact, until I started college, I rarely wrote my full name on anything, unless it was legal business. Therefore, I expected to see a lot of information about myself under 'Kavya Pratapa'. Yet, as I embarked on this project, I realized that much of the information online about me was not about ‘Kavya Pratapa’, but actually about ‘Kavyapranati Pratapa’ (my birth name).

In the rest of this essay, I will be focusing on what I observed about my online identity both through a 'google search' and through my data broker report.

My 'Google' Identity

When I googled my abbreviated name ‘Kavya Pratapa’, most of my social media accounts, like Facebook and Instagram came up. However, at the same time, a lot of the other search results were about a Bollywood film in which the lead actress’s name was ‘Kavya Pratap Singh’ (see above image).

On the other hand, when I googled my given

The first 4 Images when I googled my full name

birth name ‘Kavyapranati Pratapa’, all of the results had some relevance to me! The top two search results were my LinkedIn and WayUp profiles, but I also saw plenty of local newspaper articles about me from when I used to compete in spelling bee competitions. As I moved through the search result pages, I found random blogs that contained my name

My very own Twitter Hashtag

in pertinence to the spelling bees and even saw that there had been a Twitter hashtag of the word that I misspelled in the 2012 National Spelling Bee!

Apart from 'spelling bee' related results, there were a couple pages that contained my name from other activities, such as my vocal performances, my Medium blog that I don't post on anymore, from the university's Honors Convocation last year, and even under another data broker service FastPeopleSearch.com. It was pretty shocking to see how many different sources of information contained my name. There was just too much out there.

Self via Google

Though I am aware of the dangers of having my online identity compromised, I have never given much thought to how easily my online information could be accessed. As Luciano Floridi writes “It’s not that we don’t care about privacy, but that we accept that being online may be one of the less private things about our life”. More than anything, I was pretty surprised to see information about me from 8 or 10 years ago still capable of being accessed easily. Yet, at the same time, none of the information that I found online by googling my name was particularly disturbing or harmful to my carefully-crafted online self. While I realized that I had little control over whether I wanted to disclose that information or not, none of the information was “sensitive” or difficult to disclose. Therefore, I wasn’t incredibly concerned that this information was out there for the public to consume. It wasn't harmful to me.

My Instant Checkmate Identity

Likewise, as I looked through my data broker report, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The first couple pages were pulled from my Linkedin feed, though I did notice some inaccuracies. For example, I wrote on my profile that I would be interning at Deloitte this summer, but also had my previous summer internship at Denison Consulting in Ann Arbor listed. When I looked at my report, however, the same company ‘Denison Consulting’ was listed for both my upcoming and my current internships.

The First Page of my Instant checkmate Report

Another discrepancy I noticed was in my education of the same ‘Linkedin section’. Prior to having been accepted to the business minor, I was a part of the Cappo Sales Track program through the Ross School of Business. Even though I have updated my Linkedin profile to reflect my most current educational pursuits, my databroker profile still pulled data supposedly from one or two years ago when I was unsure of what my minor would be. As a result, this data is no longer accurate with what my educational pursuits are today.

Something that was interesting to see in my databroker profile was my previous places of residence. I have done all of my schooling in the Ann Arbor - Ypsilanti area, but I lived in Troy, Michigan and Dearborn, Michigan in the past. It was pretty intriguing to see the exact addresses of the places I lived in within these cities mentioned in my report. Until I saw this data, I didn't even know where I lived in these cities! At the same time, however, the fact that my residence information is accessible to anyone who utilizes a data broker service like Instant Checkmate was pretty shocking and made me realize how information that I always thought was 'private' was not private. I was also concerned to see the large amount of sex offenders that lived in my area. Growing up, I knew that Ypsilanti wasn’t one of the safest areas to live in, but I never paid that much attention to my surroundings. Since there were some discrepancies in the way my ‘Linkedin’ information was presented, I am curious to know how accurate Instant Checkmate is in terms of reporting sex offenders and possibly on other individuals who have committed crimes and live within your general community.

My online self - Instant Checkmate & Google

Lastly, echoing the phenomenon I observed when I googled myself, I noticed that only Linkedin and my email popped up under the social media category of the report. Though I was baffled at first, I quickly realized that neither my Facebook nor my Instagram accounts would be 'dug up' since they both feature my abbreviated name ‘Kavya Pratapa’. This led me to ask the same question that Haimson & Hoffman reference in their ‘Constructing and enforcing “authentic' ' identity online’: what constitutes as my authentic or real identity? To me, both of my names ‘Kavya Pratapa’ and ‘Kavyapranati Pratapa’ are parts of my authentic self. While I only use my full name for professional and official purposes, my abbreviated name ‘Kavya’ allows me to socially assimilate to a greater degree since it’s easier to pronounce. Yet, on InstantCheckmate, these two names seem to be independent of one another. I couldn’t view any data on my Facebook or Instagram accounts. While I am not incredibly active on either platform, this is still data that provides insight into my social life. Essentially, I don't get the complete picture of my online self only through my instant checkmate report.

This led me to wonder what version of myself was being projected by Google and my data broker report. While there were a lot of sex offenders on my profile, that is more a consequence of where I live rather than who I am. Apart from that, all of the information about me was a pretty positive depiction of myself: I am a student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, I have had research experience, and I have had professional experience in the field of consulting. In a lot of ways, my data broker profile echoes the same version of myself as my ‘google search’ results: A university student who has always been involved in academic pursuits.

Spheres of Identity

Both my pursuits of a ‘google search’ and reviewing my data broker profile did not portray a version of myself that I found to be compromising of my identity online. At the same time, however, carrying two different names that I view as the exact same,

portrayed an essentially curated version of myself. While I don’t find this to be concerning since the version I saw was ultimately positive, I did realize that my online identity, depending on which name I use, only depicts one sphere of my life. Academics have always been important to me, but having fun and spending time with my friends is just as important to who I am. It’s only when I use my social identity ‘Kavya’ that you start to see me beyond academics. In a way, my abbreviated name becomes my ticket to seeing my curated online social identity [Sphere 1] while my full name depicts my curated online professional identity [Sphere 2].

But, this isn't that far off from our offline lives. Our close friends in a social setting don't experience the part of ourselves that goes to work at 7 am in the morning, just as our colleagues don't see our 'wild side' at parties. Depending on who we are interacting with, different parts of our identity come into play, and our behaviors reflect the persona that we are trying to portray. While I initially thought that my online identity doesn't provide a complete picture of me and was hoping to get that complete picture, I realized as I was completing this project that my offline interactions also don't really provide me with a complete picture of who I am. Because, at the end of the day, I, like everyone else, exist in multiple spheres. And I'm okay with that.

References

5, Privacy.” The 4th Revolution: How the Infosphere Is Reshaping Human Reality, by Luciano Floridi, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 110–110.

Haimson, O. L., & Hoffmann, A. L. (2016). Constructing and enforcing" authentic" identity online: Facebook, real names, and non-normative identities. First Monday, 21(6).

Shoemaker, David W. “Self-Exposure and Exposure of the Self: Informational Privacy and the Presentation of Identity.” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 12, no. 1, 2009, pp. 3–15., doi:10.1007/s10676-009-9186-x.