Digital Tattoos
The Results of Data Mining
This week for my online course we had to data mine ourselves and see what we are able to find online that is public. My name is relatively common so if I were to Google my name thousands of other Jennifer's would appear within a second! Ever since starting college, I became more cautious of my digital footprint and what I post online. Prior to college, I used social media to interact with friends and family and constantly shared information via online. As a teenager, I would share my location, what I was doing and who I was with. I was oblivious in recognizing internet safety.
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First off, I find it very humorous that online scams and many websites confuse me for my dad. My dad's legal name is J. Bilmer Ortiz so often times they think it is my name, Jennifer because of the J. Throughout the years, I have received a lot of mail from AARP and Medicare because of this confusion! Thus, it's no surprise that many sites confused me for my father.
When using Google, I used both my full name and my screen name. Because I have a very common name, I was not shocked to see over 200,000 results come up in less than a second. However, I then searched my name and the city in which I live to see if the search would change. The search results lessened from 200,000 to 734. My username is used throughout my personal Instagram and Twitter. When I searched this name, I viewed pictures my best friend posted on Twitter. Oddly enough, I did not see any pictures of me, but only my best friend.
A lot of the sites were very sneaky in making you input your information to "create" a report to only have to pay for their findings. Within TruthFinder and Peoplefinder I was able to see my name, age, city I live in and family members such as my parents and siblings.
The website I found with the most public information available was Peekyou. This was the only search site that provided a profile picture of me. This profile picture is very outdated! Information such as my gender, city I live in, and my username was also provided. I was shocked and confused as to how they knew my username for social media! All of my personal social media accounts are private, however you can still search my username and view my profile picture. Something that I found interesting within this website was that they score you with a Peekscore 0-10. The higher the score someone has, the more public their information is. I was happy to see my peekscore was a 1/10.
The only search site that provided my full address was Fastpeoplesearch. This site also provided relatives and close relatives of mine. Many of these relatives I did not recognize so I am not entirely sure if this is accurate or I am just a horrible family member that I do not know all of my relatives!
When using Google, I used both my full name and my screen name. Because I have a very common name, I was not shocked to see over 200,000 results come up in less than a second. However, I then searched my name and the city in which I live to see if the search would change. The search results lessened from 200,000 to 734. My username is used throughout my personal Instagram and Twitter. When I searched this name, I viewed pictures my best friend posted on Twitter. Oddly enough, I did not see any pictures of me, but only my best friend.
A lot of the sites were very sneaky in making you input your information to "create" a report to only have to pay for their findings. Within TruthFinder and Peoplefinder I was able to see my name, age, city I live in and family members such as my parents and siblings.
The website I found with the most public information available was Peekyou. This was the only search site that provided a profile picture of me. This profile picture is very outdated! Information such as my gender, city I live in, and my username was also provided. I was shocked and confused as to how they knew my username for social media! All of my personal social media accounts are private, however you can still search my username and view my profile picture. Something that I found interesting within this website was that they score you with a Peekscore 0-10. The higher the score someone has, the more public their information is. I was happy to see my peekscore was a 1/10.
The only search site that provided my full address was Fastpeoplesearch. This site also provided relatives and close relatives of mine. Many of these relatives I did not recognize so I am not entirely sure if this is accurate or I am just a horrible family member that I do not know all of my relatives!
During my search with Intelius, I realized that "my record" was actually my dad's. As mentioned, my dad's name is J. Bilmer, so Intelius combined my name with my dad's (Jennifer Bilmer). According to them, I am 66. Although this information is inaccurate, my family information is correct. I was also able to see a portion of our home phone number we had over ten years ago.
I had the similar issue with Radaris. My name was presented as Jennifer B. Nevertheless, my age was correct. Within this site, I was able to publicly view my age, the town I live, and an abundance of family members with their age. It was very scary to see that the family members shown were 2nd and 3rd cousins.
I had the similar issue with Radaris. My name was presented as Jennifer B. Nevertheless, my age was correct. Within this site, I was able to publicly view my age, the town I live, and an abundance of family members with their age. It was very scary to see that the family members shown were 2nd and 3rd cousins.
The internet is scary!
I am a HUGE Parks and Recreation fan. (Watch the video!) In the show, there is a scene where Ron Swanson asks April about as to why the computer knows his name. April then proceeds to show him the information anyone can access online about him, causing him to become upset and throw away his computer.Needless to say, we do not want to find personal information online that is so easy to access by unknown people! I definitely think this is a skill that should be taught to students of all ages. In our school, all of our students have an iPad they use at school and take home. That means students as young as 5 and as old as 11 are given access to search the web. I believe that once students enter school, they should be taught by both the teacher and parents about internet safety. Once they get older and reach middle school they should learn more about digital tattoos and what they post now may impact their future.
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I love your post Jennifer. I had a similar experience. I am named after my father. My name is Frances and his is Francis. He died when I was younger but on some sites and account they still mistake me for him. I have a story of when I was 18 I went to go vote for the first time and they set it all up for me to vote. After I signed the form I looked down and it was my fathers form. I hadn't noticed because It was the correct address. They made a whole stink of it and it was incredibly embarrassing when I had to tell them that he couldn't come fix the problem because he as deceased. Why would they even have him as a available voter after he passed? It was interesting to me. I really connected with you on that part. Also, I too came across a lot of basic information like my address and family member. I did not try Peekyou. I will have to look into it! I totally agree that all of this is definitely scary. I learned a lot from watching Snowden. Its pretty mind blowing. This is definitely something we need to teach our children growing up in this digital world. Thanks again for your interesting post!
ReplyDeleteNice post, Jennifer. I'm in a different situation in that my last name is pretty uncommon and I didn't have as many Google results as you. I had some similar experiences with the data mining sites we used. Sometimes the info was vaguely accurate and sometimes not.
ReplyDeleteI loved the clip and GIF you shared from Parks and Rec. It can be scary to see the personal info that's out there on the internet. I agree that we have a responsibility to teach our students how to use the internet responsibly. My students have 1:1 iPads but they are not allowed to take them home and they only visit 2-3 websites that I send them to directly. So, thankfully my students are not doing a lot of web surfing. :)
Thanks for the thorough post about your experience!
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I agree that the internet is scary! I hate having all my personal information out there for anyone to access. What I found suspicious was that unfamiliar names associated with me on some of those people finder sites. Yes, our students need to understand the dangers of the internet as they begin to use it more regularly. As they get older, I hope they are taught how to remain safe online and learn about their digital presence.
ReplyDeleteThat was a great clip - thanks for sharing. I do think that many younger students think that by signing out or closing the tab/window that POOF, everything they just did magically disappears...or in Ron Swanon's case, throwing the computer away would solve everything. The biggest thing as we teach our students is to make it as relatable as possible with them so that they take it seriously and that it isn't something to take light heartedly.
ReplyDelete