How Does a User’s Digital Identity Affect Their Privacy?
- Data Collection: By the time people use the services on the Internet, parts of their digital identities are known to be followed by data traces. This may entail the sharing of specific information such as contact details, online behaviors, preferences, GPS coordinates, and other data.
- Data Breaches: In case the users’ digital identity is revealed within the data breach, then the personal details can be obtained by the others who were not authorized. This kind of exploitation may result in identity theft, financial fraud, as well as privacy violations.
- Third-Party Sharing: Digital services who share data with third-party entities either for analytics, marketing, or other joint work. Users may not know who has their personal information stored in a database because they may not have interacted with them, raising concerns about the level of access potential attackers might have.
- Location Tracking: Others like the ones that enable identification of a smartphone or an app may depict a user’s real-time location. However, it also creates a shadow as it always tracks you and then shares that with anybody.
- Social Media Exposure: People reveal their credibility using personal information, photos, minds, and relations on those channels. As a result, privacy is break down when somebody accidentally shares the information or when the data is used in some other ways than the user initially imagined.
- Reputation and Discrimination: Bad or miscalculated info on the net may affect both the reputation of an individual or an organization. Digital identity data can also be misused by algorithms that autonomously make decisions, thus sliding into biases and discrimination.
What is Digital Identity?
Digital Identity is the base unit of online communications, instigating access to services, ensuring security for transactions, and facilitating personalized experiences. It allows people to connect to online services like e-banking, online stores, and social media. In this article, we will learn about types, examples, and why it is important, and how it can affect users’ privacy.