Shriya Bajagur

My Data Identity Through Google

After searching up my full name on Google, I felt my identity online was a very surface level perception of who I am. When beginning my search, the first few results that popped up were some of my social media accounts: LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. Following this were many many links to Pinterest boards that I had pinned. As I shuffled through every Pinterest link that popped up I would ask myself, does this encompass my true identity? I clicked on the “Images” icon on Google, and only saw my high school graduation picture to identify who I was. The rest were images of other Shriyas and again, a few Pinterest pictures that I had liked. When I clicked on the “News” icon on Google, the only thing that popped up was an article that talked about my high school graduation.

348 results and I felt my identity was incomplete. If someone were to search me up, I would say the only way to get a hold of information that may reflect my personality and true identity would be through social media. However, the information within these platforms is controlled by me. In the sense, I only put out things I am okay with others seeing. And because of this, it does not really reflect my entire identity. I feel there are advantages and disadvantages to the information I found about myself. While my data identity does not fully encompass my life and personality, I am happy that I have some privacy from the world. My data identity might not say enough about me, but at least it is somewhat protected from the various unethical ways information can be used online.

ShriyaBajagur vs Shriya Bajagur

I was curious to figure out why some of my social media accounts did not pop up when I searched up “Shriya Bajagur” on Google. Because of this, I thought of refining my search a little and typing out “ShriyaBajagur” to see if anything different popped up. By doing this, only 31 results came up and there was a slight difference. Here, I saw my Twitter and Vsco account, and more Pinterest boards that I had looked at. I also found a few more pictures of myself and some of my friends too. With that being said, I felt my search from “Shriya Bajagur” was more lengthy and truer to my identity since it included more information.

Bajagur

Since my full name is unique, it wasn’t difficult for me to distinguish myself from other individuals named Shriya. Something I found interesting was that one of my searches on Google, directed me to a site that had information about the village my Great Grandfather grew up in. This village has the same name as my last name, Bajagur. While I already knew about this place and have also visited it, it was nice to read more about such a small village online. It made me realize how vast the information online can be. Even a tiny village amongst thousands of other villages within India can be recognized online. The site had information about where the village was located, how big the land is, the type of education that is accessible, and agriculture. It even provided an image of Hindu deity from a famous temple that was associated with this and 11 other villages.

Data Broker

It is a little scary knowing there are sites online that aggregate all kinds of information about you. A Data Broker collects information about an individual from various sources in order to analyze, perform background checks, and sell the information to other companies. Learning about this was concerning, knowing that your information was being transferred all throughout the internet. When I searched up my name in Google, a few of these types of websites were shown. One of them was a website called fastpeoplesearch. Here there was information about my current home address and what month and year my family and I moved here. It also had down what my age was and the year and month I was born, and who my parents are. It even indicated that I was alive and not currently married.