JJ Wright

My Data Identity

I’ve always thought my name was pretty unique. It was often the first thing people asked me about when they met me. “Oh ‘JJ’… Is that a nickname? What does it stand for?” I recite the same line I always do for this question: “Well, my full name is Johnny Jo. It was my dad’s idea to name me after both my grandmas, Johnnie and Joann (who usually goes by Jo), and call me JJ for short.” After this, I would often get a mixed response. Johnny Jo is considered a “boys name” so it seems strange to some. On the other hand, a lot of people have told me they like the name because it’s cute and unique. When we were told to search our names online and see what we could find, I was surprised that Google came up with over 55 million results for ‘Johnny Jo Wright.’ Clearly, my name isn’t as unique as I previously thought, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

With so much of our data being collected and sold across so many different platforms these days, blending in with the crowd seems advantageous. Anonymity ensures privacy and safety in today’s technology-driven world. Often, people are terrified of someone finding their IP address or social security number somewhere on the world wide web or having their private data unethically mishandled. Simultaneously, these same people want to make sure they have up-to-date social media profiles and that their online persona looks appealing to others. With this paradigm in mind, I was eager to see just how much data I had online and whether or not it was authentic, complete, and stable.

Google Search

I started with Google. Using incognito mode so my Chrome browser wouldn't recognize me, I began my search. The first page didn’t yield much beyond a few obituaries for men named ‘Johnny Wright’ or ‘Jo-Jo Wright.’ ‘JJ’ Wright did help much either, but I did find out that a Grammy-award winning musician and I share the same name. I decided to expand my search and started using different variations and even including my hometown and past schools. Most things I found were related to activities I’ve done in the past, including track and field, cross country, and girl scouts. I even found an LS&A article about my MRADS summer experience that I didn’t know existed. The most current thing I found was my staff picture and bio for the research lab I have been working at part-time since 2017. The most revealing thing I was able to find was my Facebook. I keep it private, but you can still see my hometown, college, and place of work. What I was able to find was accurate, but I didn’t find much at all so I wouldn’t consider my data-footprint very complete, at least not on the surface.

Data Broker

To dig deeper, I decided to try using a data broker. Data brokers can provide a plethora of information including your relatives, address, colleagues, and public record if you have one. This has the potential to be a very powerful tool, but of course no data is free these days, not even our own. Another downside to this is that these websites that store and sell our data are just like any other company and use marketing techniques to try and get you to pay. Some of these techniques include showing peoples success stories flashing across the screen and making you wait an unnecessarily long time so you feel like you should pay since you already invested something in it. Nevertheless, I decided to use BeenVerified and, even though I want to keep my data private, I was a bit disappointed to see that I wasn’t in the database. However, I did find my mom and dad who had accurate addresses and phone numbers.