Data Mine & Digital Tattoos

Data Mine & Digital Tattoos: I Searched the Depths of the Web...

What Did I Find?

Well, not a whole lot!  I was given an assignment to search different websites and search engines with my social media accounts, usernames, and my full name.  After watching my professor's screencast I was a little bit nervous to use all of these search engines to "look for myself."  I thought I would find out that I was a lot easier to find than I wanted to be.  Turns out I really am not that easy to find on most of the websites that I used.  I think that may be because I tend to change my username, actual name, or I add a hyphen to my name.  I used to think my name was confusing because I could be called Mary, Mary K, Mary Kate or Kate.  Turns out this is a great thing because it has made me more difficult to find online.  For now I am okay with being hard to find online, but I may change my tone once I become more involved in teaching.  Below is a list of search engines that I used and what I found when I clicked search.

• Google Search: I found the MOST about myself from this.  I searched my name in quotations and found a few things, but had to click image search to feed through all of the different Mary Kate Murphy's.  In the image search I found my linkedin picture, which I do not use anymore, an obituary for my grandfather (but not either grandmothers), and I also found my engagement photoshoot.  I thought I would see my instagram pictures, facebook pictures, pictures from newspapers and previous jobs. 
  
  
   

  

  Photo Source: Google image search of my name

• Google Search Username: I decided to search my username that is used for some of my social media accounts.  All I found was "GoNoodle's" twitter account.  I was listed as a follower, but my actual twitter account did not come up on the search.  Interesting?  Yes I think so!
• Social Media Accounts: I was able to find myself easiest on twitter and linkedin (from the above google search).  I think this is because I made these accounts more discoverable because they were tailored to my profession.  I was in a college course in my undergraduate degree and my professor told us, "If you want a job after college DO NOT let me find your Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace."  I took that advice to heart and made those accounts harder to find.  I added hyphens and phonetic spelling to make myself more anonymous.  I continued that trend when Instagram and Pinterest came out.
• Kred: Kred is a report that takes your influence and outreach and gives you a score on certain social media platforms.  Since I use my twitter account as my professional account I thought I would use that to find my Kred Score.  No surprise to myself my "kred score" was very low.  That is because I do not have many posts that interact with other influencers.  That is something I may work toward as I become more comfortable with twitter!
• Intelius & Spokeo: Both of these search engines tell you location information and personal information about whoever you are searching.  I unfortunately could not find myself on these websites.  I tried using different versions of my name, different places that I have lived, and different browsers.  There were 13 pages of Mary Murphy's in Chicago.  None of which aligned with my age or address. 
• Instant Checkmate: This is a search engine that allows you to find information on whoever you search.  You can pay to get things like social media accounts, addresses, background checks, family, family background checks, and much more information.  For free I could find my name, age, location and possible relatives.  I am not sure who Lucille is, but the other two are correct.  It claimed that it could connect me with traffic violations (no turn on red camera's and parking tickets, I promise!), social media accounts, and other information.  This seemed the most creepy to me because when setting everything up I had the option to click, "this is me."  I did not to see what I could find.  Based on that I learned that I could search anyone and pay for A LOT of information on them.
  
  

  

  Photo Source: Instant Checkmate

Article on Data Mines: Data is a Fingerprint

The linked article is an article from "The Guardian."  This article describes house we are not as anonymous as we think we are.  It is an interesting read and something I started my data mine with.

Student's and Data Mines: I think it is important to educate students on their digital fingerprint/tattoo, especially students that are now entering school.  They have all been exposed to smart devices of some sort and probably ALL already have a digital fingerprint and don't even know it!  Not to mention when they come to school they receive a device or are exposed to some form of a digital tool.  I think it is important for parents to educate their children about being anonymous online and having a presence online.  That is not something that is going to change and majority of their future's will have something to do with a web presence (I know, scary!).  Students should be educated by their teachers on the difference of an educational web presence, professional web presence, and a social web presence.  

Comment!

Have you every done a data dig on yourself?  I was apprehensive to begin because I thought I would find too much about myself.  What I found was that a lot of my public records that people can access are obituaries, social media accounts, and family profiles.  Are you apprehensive to complete your own data mine?  If you have completed one what have you found?