Difference between revisions of "User:Yukifang"
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It’s interesting how when I search my name on Google, I can find information linking back to my professional self, like where I worked in the past, research experiences, and the projects I have contributed to, but nothing on my personal life. I speculate it’s because I don’t actually post about myself casually. I have several social media accounts so I wouldn’t say I have a lack of digital presence, but many of them are not under my real name and are very inactive. I also deleted my Instagram a few months back, privated my Facebook around the same time, and deleted my profile picture, so that might have helped too. | It’s interesting how when I search my name on Google, I can find information linking back to my professional self, like where I worked in the past, research experiences, and the projects I have contributed to, but nothing on my personal life. I speculate it’s because I don’t actually post about myself casually. I have several social media accounts so I wouldn’t say I have a lack of digital presence, but many of them are not under my real name and are very inactive. I also deleted my Instagram a few months back, privated my Facebook around the same time, and deleted my profile picture, so that might have helped too. | ||
| − | == <big>''' | + | === <big>'''What This Means'''</big> === |
It’s definitely scary that I can find so much information about myself by doing a simple Google Search because anyone can see the same things I see about myself. Especially when it comes to employers, they can see all the unfinished projects I have worked on and how inactive I am on GitHub. Even though the data brokers couldn’t find much information about me, it goes to show that we can limit our presence online if we watch out for what information we leak about ourselves: photos we post, not using our real name in every account. | It’s definitely scary that I can find so much information about myself by doing a simple Google Search because anyone can see the same things I see about myself. Especially when it comes to employers, they can see all the unfinished projects I have worked on and how inactive I am on GitHub. Even though the data brokers couldn’t find much information about me, it goes to show that we can limit our presence online if we watch out for what information we leak about ourselves: photos we post, not using our real name in every account. | ||
However, even if you do have a lengthy data broker report, according to BeenVerified’s document of Do’s and Don’ts, employers can’t use our reports for background checks, landlords can’t use it to screen tenants, no one can use it to stalk people or steal an identity, because they’re all against the law. People can use it instead to retrieve public court records, verify online buyers and sellers, find someone’s current address to send greeting cards, view potential roommates, or find lost love. | However, even if you do have a lengthy data broker report, according to BeenVerified’s document of Do’s and Don’ts, employers can’t use our reports for background checks, landlords can’t use it to screen tenants, no one can use it to stalk people or steal an identity, because they’re all against the law. People can use it instead to retrieve public court records, verify online buyers and sellers, find someone’s current address to send greeting cards, view potential roommates, or find lost love. | ||
| − | In my case, there were so many | + | == <big>'''Conclusion'''</big> == |
| + | |||
| + | In my case, there were so many "me" online that it was hard to find the “real” me. There were also so many "me" that do not post casually online, which led Google to only find the professional me while data brokers couldn’t find me at all. | ||
| + | However, this all shows that we should really watch out for what we do online and understand that technology will always be watching us. There might not be a lot of information about you right now, but there will be someday. | ||
Revision as of 17:34, 14 February 2020
Contents
My Data Identity
Google Search
When I did a google search of my name, the first result that popped up was a makeup artist on Instagram with the same name. She has over 1000 followers so it makes sense to me she’s on the top as I have not made myself well known for anything yet. However, I was surprised when the second link that popped up was my LinkedIn account. There were several Yuki Fangs but mine appeared first – even in incognito mode. The third result was a Facebook profile but it was not mine. The fourth was a Twitter account that was also not mine. But fifth was a Devpost page that linked back to my old hackathon projects. After browsing several more pages, I noticed there were several results with coding related websites. My social media accounts were nowhere near the top of Google’s results but many of my coding profiles and projects were within the first two pages - GitHub, Kaggle, and HackerEarth were all on the second result page. I study Computer Science and have built several projects before so I’m not extremely surprised to find my name linked to them, but I am surprised about mostly finding coding-related information to myself.
Google Images
Upon first glance, there were many pictures of anime characters as my name is a common Japanese name in anime. There were also many pictures of wedding hairstyles because the most well-known Yuki Fang is a makeup artist. Here and there, you see different Asian girls with my name but surprisingly, there were no current nor old pictures of me – and I scrolled till the very bottom of the page. This could be a good or bad situation depending on how you see it. The only related image was linked to a research project I’m working on with my professor right now, and it wasn’t a picture of me but the project itself.
Data Broker
Using BeenVerified, a data scraping site, the report only found 2 correct pieces of information about me – my address and home phone number. My birth date and birth year were wrong – apparently, I’m 31 years old right now. My mobile number is wrong. And everything else was blank. I have no education history, professional history, photos, nor any relatives or neighbors related to me. I feel kind of glad as they didn’t link me to any false criminal charges, but I do have to admit that I’m a bit underwhelmed about the information they found.
Transparency Speculation
It’s interesting how when I search my name on Google, I can find information linking back to my professional self, like where I worked in the past, research experiences, and the projects I have contributed to, but nothing on my personal life. I speculate it’s because I don’t actually post about myself casually. I have several social media accounts so I wouldn’t say I have a lack of digital presence, but many of them are not under my real name and are very inactive. I also deleted my Instagram a few months back, privated my Facebook around the same time, and deleted my profile picture, so that might have helped too.
What This Means
It’s definitely scary that I can find so much information about myself by doing a simple Google Search because anyone can see the same things I see about myself. Especially when it comes to employers, they can see all the unfinished projects I have worked on and how inactive I am on GitHub. Even though the data brokers couldn’t find much information about me, it goes to show that we can limit our presence online if we watch out for what information we leak about ourselves: photos we post, not using our real name in every account.
However, even if you do have a lengthy data broker report, according to BeenVerified’s document of Do’s and Don’ts, employers can’t use our reports for background checks, landlords can’t use it to screen tenants, no one can use it to stalk people or steal an identity, because they’re all against the law. People can use it instead to retrieve public court records, verify online buyers and sellers, find someone’s current address to send greeting cards, view potential roommates, or find lost love.
Conclusion
In my case, there were so many "me" online that it was hard to find the “real” me. There were also so many "me" that do not post casually online, which led Google to only find the professional me while data brokers couldn’t find me at all. However, this all shows that we should really watch out for what we do online and understand that technology will always be watching us. There might not be a lot of information about you right now, but there will be someday.
