Difference between revisions of "Ruben Lugo"

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	== <big>'''My Data Identity'''</big> ==		== <big>'''My Data Identity'''</big> ==
−	Before being prompted to search myself online I had never thought much about the uniqueness of my name. In fact, ever since I left my hometown for college it feels like everywhere I go there is someone else around my age with the same first name. When faced with googling myself, however, I was lucky enough, or perhaps unlucky depending on how you see it, to find that the combination of the spelling of my first and last [[File:Oii-logo.png|400px|thumb|right|]] name provides me with narrow results all specific to my real life. When realizing this I was at first pleasantly surprised because that meant I did not have to work as hard to find results actually about me. In addition, this meant that the odds of being falsely identified or confused for someone else might be lower. On further thought, however, I became slightly more nervous, wishing for there to be hundreds of other Bailee Stirns out there to be confused with me so that no one would be able to tell what data is mine. My brainstorming immediately hoped for a means for obfuscation when it came to online profiles, something entailing making various fake facts associated with my name so as to hide the truth, but I realized that this would not necessarily address the root of the privacy and ethical concerns here.	+	I've always been curious about what information about me is out there on the internet. A couple times before I have googled my name to see what I would uncover about my online identity. When I've done these searches I don't actually find much. Much of the online information I do find is tied to my name but not necessarily me personally. It turns out there are a lot of people with the same name as me. Not only that, but many people are also named Ruben after their fathers as I am. The little information I found on the internet about me was mainly restricted to social media. [[File:Umichdatastatmentimage.jpg|400px|thumb|right|]] To my pleasant surprise, there is not much to uncover about my personal information online with a simple Google search. Even when using search engines other than Google almost none of my personal information is present. It seems that if someone wanted to obtain my personal information online they would have to put a little more effort into looking for it since a simple Google search won't do. When simply entering my name and other variations of my name in the google search bar not much came up. This gives me somewhat of a relief knowing that there are a lot of other people with my name. This means that if someone wanted to find personal information about me they would have a lot of trouble finding it. It would be difficult to find many of my other social media profiles since I do not have my actual name in these profiles. Despite my attempt at keeping my anonymity, the social media platforms themselves might know who I am given that they might know my contact information, location, and much more. This gives rise to many personal concerns as to how private my information actually is and who could find it if they tried hard enough and had the right resources. The search for my online identity takes me through search engines, social media platforms, and data broker sites which eventually leads me to figure out what information there is about me online and how representative it is of my real identity.
−	Ultimately, I found that my online data builds on the idea David Shoemaker discusses in ''Self-exposure and exposure of the self'' where individual results suggest patterns both significant and irrelevant to my self-identity. According to Shoemaker "the information that’s publicly available tends to be information that isn’t part of one’s self identity, whereas the patterning produced by data mining often is” (10). Finding particular facts about me in a very public space was generally not as concerning as the patterns they might suggest. Additionally, although many aspects of my self-identity, both patterns and some individual results, are being presented accurately, they have stolen my chance to present them in my own way, suggesting a serious lack of informational privacy.	+	=== <big>'''Search Engines'''</big> ===
−	=== <big>'''Google Search'''</big> ===	+	The results from a google search of my name mainly pulled up social media profiles, obituaries, and data broker websites. Google pulled up several pages of these type of sites that were associated with my name. The only page which was actually linked to me was a link to my LinkedIn on the first google search page. Clicking on the link takes you to my LinkedIn profile where you can see information such a picture of me, my education, past work experience, and my location. When doing a google image search of my name, it only pulled up 3 rows of pictures with none of them being associated with me. I would think that some of my pictures from social media would of shown up but I was wrong. If someone were to look for a picture of me, it seems that they would be restricted to attempting to look on my social media accounts, many of which are private. While searching for my personal information on Microsoft's search engine Bing, results did not vary much. Facebook profiles are always the first ones to pop up which display several accounts with my name. Another search on the search engine Yahoo took me to results that looked similar to those on Google and Bing. Interestingly enough, Yahoo images results provided many more images than Google and Bing. However none of these images were related to me. Most of the images were of famous soccer players and important political figures from Latin America. Thus it seems that at least through search engine searches, the information provided is not even related to me. The exception is my LinkedIn page. This provides an authentic and accurate representation of who I am mostly because I am in control of the information that gets posted on there about me.
−	The results from a google search of my name mainly fell into four categories: middle school and high school sports and clubs, academic pursuits, social media, and logistical information. The first category included various websites containing statistics, action pictures, awards, and newspaper appearances for games and other community events I participated in through student organizations. The second category included articles about my academic achievements from high school and different assignments I have created both in high school and college on public websites like Prezi and Vimeo. The third category included the only two online profiles I have associated with my name which are for Twitter and Pinterest. Finally, the rest of the search results contained information about me such as my address, sex, birth year, and relatives- all of which were accurate.	+	=== <big>'''Social Media'''</big> ===
−	=== <big>'''Data Broker'''</big> ===	+	When looking me up on social media, you are able to find much more of my personal information. Depending on which social media you search on you may be able to find a lot of general personal information about me or not find me at all. I have my personal name on TikTok but I don't use it much and do not display any personal information on my profile other than my name. You could probably find my TikTok profile but even if you manage to find it you won't get much personal information about me. My twitter profile does not have my personal name associated with it so it would be difficult to find it using my name if one were to try. Even so, my twitter profile does not have much personal information. I have a couple of photos which show my face from a long time ago but nevertheless are still pretty accessible if you look under the "media" tab on my profile. My twitter profile also shows when I first joined Twitter. With the exception of this information there is not much personal information associated with my Twitter account. For a long time I had my Instagram profile as private but I switched to public when I was trying to become an influencer and become verified, which never happened. Now that I have my Instagram profile public I feel kind of exposed since anyone could find my profile where I have a handful of photos of myself. Many of the links I came across in my search engine searches were to my social media profiles, namely LinkedIn and Facebook. These two platforms provided most of the information about me since they are both public accounts and are not hard to find if you know where I live or where I attend university. When clicking on the link to corresponding Facebook profiles you can see several pages of accounts with the same as me. You can find my Facebook profile in the first few accounts listed. Information that one could see on it is vast including where I live, where I went to high school, my personal interests and hobbies. My LinkedIn profile offers similar information but also includes information such as past work experiences, academic experience, and my career and academic aspirations. I don't really have a problem with this information being available on these platforms considering thousand of other users also have similar amounts of information on their respective social media profiles. Thus, when searching through social media, my online identity seems to be more accurate and authentic of my true real life identity.
−	Another level added to the formation of online identities is data brokers holding all kinds of information on individuals, usually found behind a paywall. When using Instant Checkmate, one such data broker, to search my name, facts such as my exact birth date, all members of my immediate family, my pinterest account, my address, my neighbors and some of their personal data, sex offenders in the area, and possible associates (whatever that means) were available. Everything that Instant Checkmate's report on me included was correct, except the category of possible associates, which subsequently gave me the most concern in my uncertainty. It said that a possible associate of mine was a person with a name I do not recognize and under his list of previous addresses, was that of my family's home. I know this is untrue because my family built our home on property that was family owned, giving it a brand new address. It makes sense that these reports would often have mistakes such as this, however, I am still labeled as an associate of this person unknown to me for anyone who chooses to see.	+	=== <big>'''Data Brokers'''</big> ===
−	=== <big>'''Patterns'''</big> ===	+	[[File:LinkedInScreenshot.png|150px|thumb|right|Screenshot of my LinkedIn profile accessible by doing a Google search of my name]] A common type of page found in my search engine searches was data broker websites. Many of the pages in my search results were filled with these type of websites which makes me kind of worried. If one was willing to pay to get my personal information they could probably get it. Getting a closer look into these websites made me realize that much of the information they had was not related to me. However, I did find information that was related to my father, since he has the same name, and therefore to my family. Some of the names associated with my fathers information was correct although some of it was also incorrect. Interestingly enough I also found information associated with my cousin, also named Ruben Lugo. There I saw many of my aunts and uncles names and cities near us. However there was little to none information found in these sites that were directly related to me.
−	[[File:Wiki_Assign-volleyball.jpg|150px|thumb|right|Picture taken from a newspaper article written about me and my high school volleyball team]]Growing up in a very small town, I made peace many years ago with the fact that my privacy in the sense of control over what was published about me, was minimal. Choosing to participate in many community-based affairs and doing well in a small high school, I knew that I had been featured in numerous local newspaper articles and was therefore not surprised to find any of these results in the first three categories. Of course, that does not mean that I am not embarrassed by some of it, especially pictures like the one to the right. But because I had adjusted my life to expect these things many years ago, I found myself not as distraught at first glance to find it publicly available.	+	=== <big>'''Conclusion'''</big> ===
−	Many of the Google results listed above would then form patterns along the lines of being involved in and caring about community or striving academically. They are showing things that I continue to contribute to my self-identity and am generally proud of, so I find myself asking- should I really get to complain? Despite the circumstances reducing most personal concern on these patterns, it is still clear that my privacy is limited. I did not ask for these individual results to be public but I might be considered lucky that these characteristics are associated with my name- what authors of ''Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet'' might describe as esteem forming a positive reputation (Brennan and Pettit). However, looking at it through a privacy lens conveys an unfavorable picture as I essentially have no control of the pattern being made by collecting all of these things.	+	As I write my personal data identity statement it is clear that there is not much information about me which leaves little concern for me in thinking about what people could find on me. I am not very concerned about the individual online results that aren't even accurate and also not strong factors in my self-identity or do not contribute to larger patterns that are. This included some of the Google results and most of the databroker facts like age, past place of residence, and related family members. In addition, I was not as concerned about accurately depicted associates like family members because I welcome any sort of presentation of our connection. Unlike the other self-identity aspects, I could not think of a single reason for the presentation of my immediate family to matter, but I realize that this is not how everyone would feel.
−		+
−	=== <big>'''Presentation and Privacy'''</big> ===	+
−		+
−	In Dean Cocking's Plural Selves and Relational Identity, he writes that privacy depends on one's control over self-presentation. The actual presentation of both individual facts and patterns like the ones described above are mostly out of my control when it comes to the internet. I use few social media accounts and the two that I do, Twitter and Pinterest, I have rarely if ever posted on. This seems important to acknowledge because I believe that many social media platforms are a space where you have some control over presentation. Where my concern on this particular matter comes in then, is online data with the combination of three things: being publically available, attributed to my self-identity, and published and or posted by someone else.	+
−		+
−	==== When they get it right ====	+
−		+
−	One such example, in which the data was accurate but the presentation was out of my control was my address. According to Shoemaker, the "domain of informational privacy, the zone to be protected, is information about one’s self-identity", and for me, this includes where I grew up (11). A further search on the town in my available address provides details such as the population is around 1,500, the median household income is less than $40,000, and the unemployment rate is around 10%. This might offer half of the picture of my background or the town, but it is not everything I would want someone to consider and it could initiate biases. In addition, sharing this information with some people might feel comfortable or necessary, but doing so with others might not be, or at least I should be able to decide which aspects to express. However, I have no control over this with the presentation of my address taken out of my hands.	+
−		+
−	Other examples would be the results that went into the patterns I discussed above like articles on my volunteer, athletic, and academic pursuits. Not only do they contribute to possible patterns that add to my self-identity but the actual presentation is decided by someone else as well. While these may be relatively low stakes examples, the privacy implications are still there and important to acknowledge for when the case has bigger consequences.	+
−		+
−	==== When they get it wrong ====	+
−		+
−	As I mentioned before, the only aspect of my online data identity that I found to be incorrect was the mysterious appearance of an unknown person listed as my associate on Checkmate. Using Shoemaker's domain for informational privacy, I include my family and friends to have a role in my self-identity. The false connection to this stranger then feels like a breach of my privacy. The presentation of this incorrect information is out of my command and even though I know nothing about this person, I am still connected to his online data identity. Not only do I have to worry about what information is available on me, I also have to worry about whatever this other person has out there. Now, I realize that becoming paranoid over this might be an overreaction, however, it demonstrates that false data like this can be built into an online identity. It is not only a breach of privacy but it also could have other consequences on your life because the presentation of your data is outside of your control.	+
−		+
−	=== <big>'''Conclusion'''</big> ===	+
−	Writing this, it is clear that I do not fully understand everything about my online identity and why some things seem like a breach of privacy and other things do not. For example, I am not very concerned about the individual online results that although accurate, are not strong factors in my self-identity or do not contribute to larger patterns that are. This included some of the Google results and most of the databroker facts like age, neighbors, and nearby sex offenders. In addition, I was not as concerned about accurately depicted associates like family members because I welcome any sort of presentation of our connection. Unlike the other self-identity aspects, I could not think of a single reason for the presentation of my immediate family to matter, but I realize that this is not how everyone would feel.	+	Much of the information that is out there about me is not authentic or accurate to my real life identity. For example, searches I made through search engines provided information that was not even related to me. However, the information that was related to me was accurate and authentic of my identity such as my LinkedIn profile. As I searched platforms like social medias facebook and instagram the information provided was first related to me, accurate, and authentic to my real life identity. Lastly, on data broker sites, information available there was related to me and mostly accurate and authentic.
	Being aware of your online data identity is an important practice in this increasingly digital world. In my case, almost every result from searching my name is accurate, but even in cases where it is not accurate, its presentation could fall back on me and my life. Thinking about informational privacy in respect to individuals having control over aspects of their self-identity and its presentation offers a serious message about the current state of internet users' privacy. I quickly realized that there is little to no control of these things in many online spaces. I am fortunate that most things in my data identity are not likely to be used to seriously harm me, but again that is not the case for all people. Further work in the area of online privacy should accordingly focus on giving back control of the presentation of the elements that users attribute to their self-identity, which are most often the patterns formulated from individual data.		Being aware of your online data identity is an important practice in this increasingly digital world. In my case, almost every result from searching my name is accurate, but even in cases where it is not accurate, its presentation could fall back on me and my life. Thinking about informational privacy in respect to individuals having control over aspects of their self-identity and its presentation offers a serious message about the current state of internet users' privacy. I quickly realized that there is little to no control of these things in many online spaces. I am fortunate that most things in my data identity are not likely to be used to seriously harm me, but again that is not the case for all people. Further work in the area of online privacy should accordingly focus on giving back control of the presentation of the elements that users attribute to their self-identity, which are most often the patterns formulated from individual data.

---

Latest revision as of 22:03, 20 April 2021

My Data Identity

I've always been curious about what information about me is out there on the internet. A couple times before I have googled my name to see what I would uncover about my online identity. When I've done these searches I don't actually find much. Much of the online information I do find is tied to my name but not necessarily me personally. It turns out there are a lot of people with the same name as me. Not only that, but many people are also named Ruben after their fathers as I am. The little information I found on the internet about me was mainly restricted to social media. To my pleasant surprise, there is not much to uncover about my personal information online with a simple Google search. Even when using search engines other than Google almost none of my personal information is present. It seems that if someone wanted to obtain my personal information online they would have to put a little more effort into looking for it since a simple Google search won't do. When simply entering my name and other variations of my name in the google search bar not much came up. This gives me somewhat of a relief knowing that there are a lot of other people with my name. This means that if someone wanted to find personal information about me they would have a lot of trouble finding it. It would be difficult to find many of my other social media profiles since I do not have my actual name in these profiles. Despite my attempt at keeping my anonymity, the social media platforms themselves might know who I am given that they might know my contact information, location, and much more. This gives rise to many personal concerns as to how private my information actually is and who could find it if they tried hard enough and had the right resources. The search for my online identity takes me through search engines, social media platforms, and data broker sites which eventually leads me to figure out what information there is about me online and how representative it is of my real identity.

Search Engines

The results from a google search of my name mainly pulled up social media profiles, obituaries, and data broker websites. Google pulled up several pages of these type of sites that were associated with my name. The only page which was actually linked to me was a link to my LinkedIn on the first google search page. Clicking on the link takes you to my LinkedIn profile where you can see information such a picture of me, my education, past work experience, and my location. When doing a google image search of my name, it only pulled up 3 rows of pictures with none of them being associated with me. I would think that some of my pictures from social media would of shown up but I was wrong. If someone were to look for a picture of me, it seems that they would be restricted to attempting to look on my social media accounts, many of which are private. While searching for my personal information on Microsoft's search engine Bing, results did not vary much. Facebook profiles are always the first ones to pop up which display several accounts with my name. Another search on the search engine Yahoo took me to results that looked similar to those on Google and Bing. Interestingly enough, Yahoo images results provided many more images than Google and Bing. However none of these images were related to me. Most of the images were of famous soccer players and important political figures from Latin America. Thus it seems that at least through search engine searches, the information provided is not even related to me. The exception is my LinkedIn page. This provides an authentic and accurate representation of who I am mostly because I am in control of the information that gets posted on there about me.

Social Media

When looking me up on social media, you are able to find much more of my personal information. Depending on which social media you search on you may be able to find a lot of general personal information about me or not find me at all. I have my personal name on TikTok but I don't use it much and do not display any personal information on my profile other than my name. You could probably find my TikTok profile but even if you manage to find it you won't get much personal information about me. My twitter profile does not have my personal name associated with it so it would be difficult to find it using my name if one were to try. Even so, my twitter profile does not have much personal information. I have a couple of photos which show my face from a long time ago but nevertheless are still pretty accessible if you look under the "media" tab on my profile. My twitter profile also shows when I first joined Twitter. With the exception of this information there is not much personal information associated with my Twitter account. For a long time I had my Instagram profile as private but I switched to public when I was trying to become an influencer and become verified, which never happened. Now that I have my Instagram profile public I feel kind of exposed since anyone could find my profile where I have a handful of photos of myself. Many of the links I came across in my search engine searches were to my social media profiles, namely LinkedIn and Facebook. These two platforms provided most of the information about me since they are both public accounts and are not hard to find if you know where I live or where I attend university. When clicking on the link to corresponding Facebook profiles you can see several pages of accounts with the same as me. You can find my Facebook profile in the first few accounts listed. Information that one could see on it is vast including where I live, where I went to high school, my personal interests and hobbies. My LinkedIn profile offers similar information but also includes information such as past work experiences, academic experience, and my career and academic aspirations. I don't really have a problem with this information being available on these platforms considering thousand of other users also have similar amounts of information on their respective social media profiles. Thus, when searching through social media, my online identity seems to be more accurate and authentic of my true real life identity.

Data Brokers

A common type of page found in my search engine searches was data broker websites. Many of the pages in my search results were filled with these type of websites which makes me kind of worried. If one was willing to pay to get my personal information they could probably get it. Getting a closer look into these websites made me realize that much of the information they had was not related to me. However, I did find information that was related to my father, since he has the same name, and therefore to my family. Some of the names associated with my fathers information was correct although some of it was also incorrect. Interestingly enough I also found information associated with my cousin, also named Ruben Lugo. There I saw many of my aunts and uncles names and cities near us. However there was little to none information found in these sites that were directly related to me.

Conclusion

As I write my personal data identity statement it is clear that there is not much information about me which leaves little concern for me in thinking about what people could find on me. I am not very concerned about the individual online results that aren't even accurate and also not strong factors in my self-identity or do not contribute to larger patterns that are. This included some of the Google results and most of the databroker facts like age, past place of residence, and related family members. In addition, I was not as concerned about accurately depicted associates like family members because I welcome any sort of presentation of our connection. Unlike the other self-identity aspects, I could not think of a single reason for the presentation of my immediate family to matter, but I realize that this is not how everyone would feel.

Much of the information that is out there about me is not authentic or accurate to my real life identity. For example, searches I made through search engines provided information that was not even related to me. However, the information that was related to me was accurate and authentic of my identity such as my LinkedIn profile. As I searched platforms like social medias facebook and instagram the information provided was first related to me, accurate, and authentic to my real life identity. Lastly, on data broker sites, information available there was related to me and mostly accurate and authentic.

Being aware of your online data identity is an important practice in this increasingly digital world. In my case, almost every result from searching my name is accurate, but even in cases where it is not accurate, its presentation could fall back on me and my life. Thinking about informational privacy in respect to individuals having control over aspects of their self-identity and its presentation offers a serious message about the current state of internet users' privacy. I quickly realized that there is little to no control of these things in many online spaces. I am fortunate that most things in my data identity are not likely to be used to seriously harm me, but again that is not the case for all people. Further work in the area of online privacy should accordingly focus on giving back control of the presentation of the elements that users attribute to their self-identity, which are most often the patterns formulated from individual data.