Difference between revisions of "Rani Woerner"

Revision as of 16:48, 19 February 2021

My name is unique, to say the least. My first name is in Hindi and my last is in German, which makes for quite an uncommon pairing. Additionally, the only other person I know of who shares my first name is a fairy in a fictional children’s book series, and I have never met someone outside of my family with my last name. Putting these two names together, it has always been easy for me to find information about myself online.

The first time I Googled myself, I was shocked to find that I am the only Rani Woerner on the internet, and that came with a sense of pride for me. I felt cool being someone who could find themselves on Google just by searching my name. On the other hand, this allows anybody to simply put my name into a search bar to find any and all information available about me on the internet. Whether that be friends, strangers, or potential employers, my internet identity is very open to the public eye, and what people see about me online can influence their perception of who I am.

Instead of looking myself up for the purpose of having fun, I wanted to use private browsers and separate devices to effectively dissociate from my digital body and generate a third person perspective of how I appear on the internet. My goal was to develop a better understanding of both myself and of how other people may perceive me based on what they can observe from something as trivial as typing my name into any platform that I carry a presence.

Google Search

Upon Googling myself, I was swarmed with pages of results, all of which directly related to me. For each search that I did using my first and last name, there was no question that all the information I found was about me. I discovered absolutely no trace of another Rani Woerner, and so I took a closer look at the search results.

Most of what I found were various race results from high school cross country/track as well 5ks and triathlons that I participated in with my family. There were articles from my high school’s newspaper that I was quoted or mentioned in, minutes from a Superintendent Advisory Council meeting that I attended, descriptions of awards I had won in high school on my school district’s Facebook page, and bios for jobs/volunteer positions where staff were included in their website. I saw some of my profiles for social media platforms and even found my medium profile.

Data Broker

Seeing as my name is apparently unique to me, when I started searching for myself on data brokers, I decided to search using just my name, and if nothing showed up, I would add additional information like my age and city.

The first broker I tried, Instant Checkmate, had absolutely no information on me. I searched my name and got nothing. I then included my age and city to help the search and again came up with nothing. My name had zero matches in that particular database.

Search results for my name on BeenVerified.

I then went to another broker called BeenVerified. I typed in just my name, excluding any location information to see if my name was a unique enough way to find me. Sure enough, out of “billions” of records, there was only one Rani Woerner. I waited multiple minutes for everything to load, only to find the information was behind a paywall. After purchasing my $1 trial, I finally got to look at what information this data broker had on me.

I found my home address, information on my relatives, neighbors and associates, possible usernames to my social media accounts, and the meaning of my name. The reports, although not super extensive, had a few things that stuck out to me. My mom was listed with her maiden name and her married name listed underneath as a possible other name she might go by. Under the list of my relatives associated with my mom, most of which were my uncles, aunts and cousins, there were two names I didn’t recognize. Seeing as my mom’s maiden name is one of the most common Indian last names, I wasn’t surprised that a few people got mistaken as my relatives. As for the person listed as my associate, she used to nanny for my family and left us a couple years ago.

Social Media

Through the medium of a private browser on which I was not logged into my account on any platform, I gathered information on my social media presence. I found very limited information about myself on Instagram and TikTok, seeing as I have made my Instagram private and rarely use TikTok. The information about me on those platforms is limited to a username, a follower count, a bio, and a profile picture.

Examples of some of the pictures of me one can see on my Facebook page.

Facebook, however, yielded a bounty of information ranging from my current education to the city I call home to a list of my Facebook friends. I also found a surprising amount of photos, ranging from prom to embarrassing birthday photos, that either I had posted or my friends had tagged me in. LinkedIn has a similar scope to Facebook in that users can, with a search of my name, see anything I have uploaded or posted on my profile. However, the information on this platform is more centered around my work experience and education.

As I found before with Google and BeenVerified, there was no other Rani Woerner on any social media platform. While this benefits me on websites like LinkedIn where employers can easily find me and information about my qualifications, people can also do a quick search on websites like Facebook and find a history of pictures that I’m not necessarily comfortable sharing to the world.

My Online Identity

I can now say without a doubt that I am the only Rani Woerner on the internet, which made it extremely easy for me to figure out what my online data identity looks like and answer the question as to who people think I am when they look me up online.

Did the internet get it right?

From my findings, the information about me on the internet was pretty accurate and authentic. Aside from a few mistaken relatives, everything I saw about myself online was true. My Google search gave me information about my activities and accomplishments, the data broker gave me information about where I live and who my relatives are, and my searches on social media told me about my professional qualifications, where I go to school, and how funny I look in pictures. Even though much of the information I found online were things I put there myself or consented to having someone else post, it was astonishing to me just how much information there was about me and how much someone could learn about me with their only starting point being my name.

However, I found my online identity to be quite unstable across time. All of the information I found is accurate and aligned with my personal identity at the time it was posted, but much of it is now dated. Looking at all of the information I found, I feel like my internet presence has not updated to reflect the person I have become since I came to college. Most of my Google search results focused on activities I did and awards I won in high school. I also have been less active on social media since starting college, and while I like to keep my LinkedIn up to date for recruiting purposes, my presence and pictures on Facebook suggest a commitment to social media that I no longer have and friendships with people I no longer speak to. Even my data broker search provided me with my old address from home and the name of a nanny I haven’t spoken to in years. This opened my eyes to just how outdated my online identity is and how someone searching my name on the internet will learn things about me and formulate their idea as to who I am based off of information that was true two years ago but doesn’t necessarily embody my present self. I also learned just how much I have changed in the past two years from my activities to my friends to even my address.

Conclusion

I learned that on the internet, I have nowhere to hide. If someone searches my name, whatever they find can be attributed to me with absolute certainty, which can be slightly uncomfortable from a privacy standpoint. I’ve never been one to care much about my privacy online, but it makes me a little uneasy to think about the fact that my online data identity is so exposed. Other than making some of my accounts private, anyone searching my name online can see everything that has ever referenced my name, and I have no say in the matter. So while I used to think that being able to find myself on Google with ease was cool, I now realize the downsides of having a unique name when it comes to the internet. Not only is my entire online presence out there for anyone to see with a simple search of my name, it’s not even an accurate testament to who I am today.