What are digital traces?

Through your computer, mobile phone, and other digital devices, you leave behind hundreds of digital traces (also called data traces) every day: bits of information about you that are created, stored, and collected.

When your digital traces are put together to create stories about you or profiles of you, these become your digital shadows. These can give others huge insight into your life; and they can also be totally wrong. Either way, once they're out there, they are almost impossible to control....

Digital traces: content and metadata

We leave hundreds of digital traces every day. What are they and how do we create them?

How much control do we have over our data?

Once digital traces are created, they usually leave our immediate control and land up in the hands of others.

Can data actually be anonymised?

A closer look at the often-made claim that "effective anonymisation is possible".

who's collecting our DATA?

We're being followed around the internet, and tracked through our mobile phones. What personal data are companies and institutions collecting, and what for?

"SO WHAT? I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE"

7 Things we know you're going to say

"I've got nothing to hide"; "It's just the internet"; "But I'm just one in millions".....and four more.

control your data:
simple how-to's

How to change settings, block trackers, and choose usable alternative tools.

start now: simple how-to's

Investigations
into the data society

We live in a world currently suffering from an extreme case of Obsessive Collection Disorder. What is actually going on? Where do we fit in? What does all of this mean for us? This section takes a deeper, more in-depth look at things.