User:Chpena
Today I feel like being an athlete. Tomorrow I may feel more like a real estate agent. I don’t think it’s too far fetched considering just yesterday I was a playwright. Ok, I’ll get serious before I lose you as a reader. The ever-expanding world of data collection has inundated the digital world with countless amounts of information, especially on individuals. This may seem like a breach of privacy for some, but it can also be used to remain (somewhat) anonymous by others.
Deputy Christopher Pena is the new wellness coordinator for the Denver Sheriff Department.
Big Brother:
You can literally ‘Google’ anything these days. I typed gibberish (“vniuailske”) into a Google search, and got hits for graphics visualizations. This can be seen as a major advantage to those of us with somewhat common names. I opened an Incognito Chrome window, to negate the effect of cookies, and searched my name. The top hit is for a New York City playwright best known as a co-writer for the TV show “Jane the Virgin”. The next few pages include results for a cancer researcher, an optometrist, a real estate agent, and athletes of several sports to include bodybuilding, baseball, football, and volleyball. To my amusement there’s even an ‘Urban Dictionary’ reference to my name. The definition is NSFW as they say, but feel free to look it up if you’re not easily offended.
Next up was to search through Facebook profiles. Several minutes of scrolling did not yield my profile - perhaps a feature of keeping my profile private? I logged in to my Facebook account, and viewed my public profile with their “View As” feature. I was pleased to see that only my profile picture, background banner, and a meme show up. All of which I’d give a PG rating. All one might be able to deduce from that information is I 1) presumably look like one of two individuals, 2) have something to do with java, and 3) have a phenomenal sense of Star Wars humor. Further, none of my other social media accounts appeared anywhere.
I had to try a little harder. I added cities I’ve lived in after my name in the Google search. Again we see a variety of athletes, and our good ol’ real estate agent friend. Amongst all these results are links to data brokers. Reading the text below the link doesn’t entice me as those hits are for arrest records or for individuals at least a decade older than I am. A few search result pages in, and one finally catches my attention. My sister’s name and address pop-up. I can’t resist, and I follow the link. I was somewhat mortified to see not only her name and current address, but previous addresses, possible relatives (where I come in), current and old email addresses, and even her phone number all on the open web! It is clear this particular data broker had the goods on my sister, and I can presume something on me as well. Unfortunately, that’s all the information they were willing to give without providing my credit card number. Our professor was kind enough to do just that, so let’s take a look at what one particular data broker found on me.
- Realtor.jpg
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Pay to Play:
My fears of having a larger-than-expected digital footprint begin to come to life at the start of the data broker report. My name, birthday, and a few relatives start off the report. Not good. An ‘Associates’ section appears next, and again a couple of relatives. My fears wane a tad as the rest of the giant list is filled with individuals I don’t know, other than two or three friends. ‘Possible Relationships’ is next, and it’s mostly old friends I haven’t spoken to in years. Except for my sister, who happens to be on this list, but this time it’s not her legal name. Some possible contact information follows, but neither the phone number nor the email address are still in service.
One thing they did have on me is most of my previous addresses, as well as a traffic ticket. I never spoke to most of my neighbors, so again the list consists of names I do not recognize. A ridiculous “failed to signal turn” citation still follows and haunts me to this day.
The following ‘Possible’ and ‘Unlikely’ criminal records aren’t so inconsequential. DUI’s, assaults, and prohibited weapons charges to name a few, and all of which happened to have occurred in cities I never resided in. Another disturbing piece from the report was the remaining 30 pages, which listed registered sex offenders in the neighborhoods I had lived in.
Fairy Tale Ending?:
I’m not entirely disappointed in the results of this experiment. In fact, I would say I’m relatively pleased I’ve been able to maintain a fairly quiet digital footprint considering most of the information found was beyond my control. It’s extremely helpful when similarly named individuals are actually trying to get themselves noticed online. Coupled with the fact I share a name with dozens, maybe even hundreds (thousands?) of other individuals helps keep me in my own incognito mode.
Google Chrome default Incognito Mode
