What Does the Internet Know About You? | Behavent
Most people have never looked. The practical steps to find your public digital footprint — and what to do about what you find.
Behavent Team
Try this: open a new browser tab, type your full name into a search engine, and press enter.
For some people, the results are sparse — an old LinkedIn profile, a mention in a school newsletter from twelve years ago. For others, it's much more: social media profiles, forum posts, event registrations, news mentions, home addresses, phone numbers, even property records.
Most people have never actually done this search. They've built up a digital presence over years — signing up for services, posting online, filling in forms — without ever looking at what that accumulation actually looks like from the outside. Your public digital footprint is the picture of you that anyone in the world can see. It's worth knowing what's in it.
“Your digital footprint wasn't built in a day, and you won't clear it in one. But understanding it is the first step to managing it.”
What makes up your digital footprint
Your digital footprint has two parts: what you've deliberately put online, and what's been collected or published about you without you necessarily knowing.
What you've shared
Social media profiles, posts, photos. Forum accounts and comments. Reviews you've written. Your LinkedIn, your personal website, anything you've published under your name.
What's been collected
Data broker profiles compiled from public records. Electoral roll data. Business registrations. Property records. Mentions in news articles, event registrations, court records.
What apps share
Location data shared by apps you use. Email addresses and phone numbers shared with third-party services. App permissions that feed data to advertisers and partners.
What's been breached
Credentials and personal details from data breaches you may not even know about. Email addresses, passwords, phone numbers sold and traded between criminals.
The first two categories are what most people think of as their digital footprint. The last two are what most people don't think about at all — but they're often where the real exposure is.
Five practical steps to find yours
01. Search for yourself — properly
Start with Google, then repeat with Bing and DuckDuckGo — different search engines surface different results. Search for your full name in quotes: "Your Full Name". Try variations: your name plus your city, your name plus your employer, your name plus your phone number or email address.
Look beyond the first page. Scroll through several pages of results and note what appears. Old forum accounts, social media profiles you'd forgotten, mentions in news articles, registrations you don't remember making. Also try an image search — Google Images or TinEye can surface photos of you that you didn't post yourself.
Try this
Search: "Your Name" + your suburb or city. Then: "Your Name" + your current or previous employer. Each combination surfaces different results.
02. Check if your email has appeared in a data breach
Data breaches happen constantly. When a service you've used is compromised, your email address — and possibly your password — can end up in databases that are traded and sold online. Most people have appeared in at least one breach without knowing about it.
Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned.com) is a free, reputable service that lets you check whether your email address has appeared in any known data breach. You enter your address, it tells you which breaches it appeared in and what information was exposed. No account needed, no sign-up required.
Visit haveibeenpwned.com and check every email address you use regularly. Check your older addresses too — breaches often involve accounts from years ago. If you find you've been affected, change those passwords immediately.
03. Check your social media privacy settings
Most people set up their social media accounts years ago and haven't revisited the privacy settings since. What was visible to friends at the time might now be visible to everyone — settings change, defaults shift, and platforms have a habit of making things more public over time.
Go through each platform you use and check: who can see your posts, your profile information, your photos, your friends list, your tagged posts. On Facebook, use the "View As" feature to see your profile as a stranger would. Also check which third-party apps are connected to your social accounts.
On Facebook: Settings → Privacy → View As. On Instagram: Settings → Account Privacy. On LinkedIn: Settings → Visibility. Set aside 20 minutes and go through each platform you use.
04. Look yourself up on data broker sites
Data brokers are companies that collect and sell personal information compiled from public records, social media, loyalty programs, and other sources. They know more about most people than most people realise: name, address, phone number, family members, estimated income, property ownership, and more.
Some of the most widely used data broker sites include Spokeo, WhitePages, Intelius, and BeenVerified. Most data broker sites have an opt-out process, though it requires contacting each site individually. Services like DeleteMe (paid) can handle this on your behalf.
Search your name on Spokeo and WhitePages. Note what appears — address history, phone numbers, family connections. Both have opt-out processes if you want to request removal.
05. Audit the accounts you've forgotten about
Most people have dozens of accounts on services they no longer use — old forums, apps they tried once, online stores, competitions they entered. Each one holds some personal information, and each one is a potential breach waiting to happen.
Check your email for registration confirmations. Search your inbox for terms like "welcome to", "thanks for registering", "your account", and "verify your email". You'll likely surface accounts you'd completely forgotten existed. For accounts you no longer use: delete them if possible.
Search your email inbox for "welcome to" and scroll through the results. Pick three old accounts you no longer use and delete them today. One old account cleared per week adds up quickly.
Public records — what's accessible where you live
In Australia, the electoral roll is shared with political parties and has found its way into commercial databases. Property records are searchable through state land registries. Business registrations through ASIC are publicly searchable.
In the UK, the "open register" — names and addresses of anyone who hasn't explicitly opted out — is available for purchase by anyone, for any reason. You can opt out by contacting your local council — this is a straightforward and worthwhile step. In the US, voter registration data is subject to public records laws in most states.
None of this is a reason to panic — but it's worth knowing these sources exist, particularly if you find accurate home address information appearing in data broker profiles.
What to do about what you find
The goal isn't to disappear from the internet — it's to be intentional about what's out there and to close the gaps that create unnecessary risk.
Old accounts you no longer use: delete them. Search your inbox for registration emails and remove them.
Breached credentials: change those passwords immediately, especially if they were reused elsewhere. This is where a password manager pays off — unique passwords mean one breach doesn't cascade.
Overly public social profiles: review and tighten your privacy settings. Most platforms default to more public than you'd probably choose if you were thinking about it.
Data broker profiles: submit opt-out requests to the major brokers. It takes time but it's worth doing, particularly if you find accurate home address information publicly listed.
Going forward: be selective about what you share when signing up for new services. Use a separate email address for newsletters and accounts that don't need your primary address.
You don't need to do all of this at once. Pick one step, do it today, and come back for the next one. Your footprint was built up over years — managing it is a gradual process, not a one-afternoon project.
Privacy Control · Know Your Risk
Understanding your footprint is where improvement starts
Two Behavent domains relate directly to what you've explored in this article. Privacy Control tracks how well you manage what you share — with apps, platforms, and services. Know Your Risk reflects your awareness of your own exposure and how you respond to it.
Both domains improve as you take the steps above. Behavent tracks your progress over time so you can see how your privacy posture changes as you close gaps.
Ready to understand your full security picture?
Your Behavent Score covers Privacy Control, Know Your Risk, and eight other domains — all in one place.
Behavent Team
The team behind Behavent. We believe better daily habits make everyone safer online. No jargon, no fearmongering — just clear, honest guidance you can actually use.
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