Digital Footprints: Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency

The vast array of data points that make up "personal information" in the age of online media are nearly impossible to quantify or neatly define. Name, address, and phone number are just the basics in a world where voluntarily posting self-authored content such as text, photos, and video has become a cornerstone of engagement in the era of the participatory Web.

The more content we contribute voluntarily to the public or semi-public corners of the Web, the more we are not only findable, but also knowable.

Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint.

Unlike footprints left in the sand at the beach, our online data trails often stick around long after the tide has gone out. And as more internet users have become comfortable with the idea of authoring and posting content online, they have also become more aware of the information that remains connected to their name online.

Nearly half of all internet users (47%) have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22%, as reported by the Pew Internet Project in 2002. Younger users (under the age of 50) are more prone to self-searching than those ages 50 and older.

Men and women search for information about themselves in equal numbers, but those with higher levels of education and income are considerably more likely to monitor their online identities using a search engine.

Few monitor their online presence with great regularity.

Just 3% of self-searchers report that they make a regular habit of it and 22% say they search using their name "every once in a while." Three-quarters of self-searchers (74%) have checked up on their digital footprints only once or twice.

Most internet users are not sure exactly what personal information is available online:

Roughly one third of internet users say the following pieces of information are available online: their email address, home address, home phone number, or their employer. One quarter to one third of internet users say they do not know if those data points are available online.

One quarter of internet users say a photo, names of groups they belong to, or things they have written that have their name on them appear online.
Few internet users say their political affiliation, cell phone number, or videos of them appear online.

In interviews with the Pew Internet Project, privacy advocates and professional researchers argued that many of these data points are indeed available about most people, either on the open Web or in select online databases.

Most internet users are not concerned about the amount of information available about them online, and most do not take steps to limit that information.

Fully 60% of internet users say they are not worried about how much information is available about them online.

Similarly, the majority of online adults (61%) do not feel compelled to limit the amount of information that can be found about them online. Just 38% say they have taken steps to limit the amount of online information that is available about them.

Online adults can be divided into four categories based on their level of concern about their online information and whether or not they take steps to limit their online footprint:

Confident Creatives are the smallest of the four groups, comprising 17% of online adults. They say they do not worry about the availability of their online data and actively upload content, but still take steps to limit their personal information. Young adults are most likely to fall into this group.

The Concerned and Careful fret about the personal information available about them online and take steps to proactively limit their own online data. One in five online adults (21%) falls into this category.

Despite being anxious about how much information is available about them, members of the Worried by the Wayside group do not actively limit their online information. This group contains 18% of online adults.

The Unfazed and Inactive group is the largest of the four groups -- 43% of online adults fall into this category. They neither worry about their personal information nor take steps to limit the amount of information that can be found out about them online.

Internet users have reason to be uncertain about the availability of personal data; 60% of those who search for their names actually find information about themselves online, but 38% say their searches come up short.

The majority of internet users who have the inclination to query their names with a search engine do find some relevant results (60%), but a sizable segment (38%) report that a simple search does not yield any information connected to their name.

Among those who have searched for their name online, 62% find that the amount of relevant information about them generally matches their expectations. One in five self-searchers (21%) are surprised by how much information they find online about themselves, while 13% express disbelief at how little information comes up in their results.

Fully 87% of self-searchers who locate information connected to their name say that most of what they find is accurate, up significantly from the 74% who reported this five years ago.

In contrast, 11% of self searchers who find information about themselves online say that most of it is not accurate, down from 19% five years ago.
Just 4% of all online adults say they have had bad experiences because embarrassing or inaccurate information was posted about them online.
One-in-ten internet users have a job that requires them to self-promote or market their name online.

While most Americans do not actively manage their online presence, a segment of internet users have jobs that require them to market their name on the internet or make information about themselves available online. As one might expect, those motivated by work-related expectations are much more likely to use a search engine to track their digital footprints.

Those with the highest education levels report a greater tendency towards managing their professional presence online. Fully 18% of working college graduates report that their employer expects some form of self-marketing online as part of their job, compared with just 5% of working adults who have a high school diploma.

Employees who are required to market themselves online are far more likely to monitor their presence with a search engine. Fully 68% of these "public personae" use a search engine to look up their own name, compared with just 48% of employed internet users who are not required to market themselves online as part of their job.

One-in-five working American adults (20%) say their employer has a special policy about how employees present themselves online -- including what can be shared and posted on blogs and other websites.

Among adults who create social networking profiles, transparency is the norm.

The Pew Internet Project has reported extensively on teenagers' use of social networking websites, finding that 55% of online teens have created an online profile and that most restrict access to them in some way. Looking at adults, their use of social networking profiles is much lower (just 20%), but those who use the sites appear to do so in a more transparent way.

Among adult internet users who maintain an online profile, 82% say that their profile is currently visible compared with 77% of online teens who report this.

Among adults who say they have a visible profile, 60% say that profile can be seen by anyone who happens upon it, while 38% say their profile is only accessible to friends.

Teens with visible profiles make more conservative choices with respect to visibility; just 40% said their profile was visible to anyone, while 59% reported access that was restricted to friends only.

More than half of all adult internet users have used a search engine to follow others' footprints.

When asked about eight different groups of people one might search for online -- ranging from family and friends to romantic interests and business colleagues -- 53% of adult internet users said they had looked for information connected to at least one of these groups.

Most are casually curious in their searches for others. Just 7% of those who have searched for information on key people in their lives report doing so on a regular basis.

Users are most likely to search for someone they have lost touch with. Fully 36% of adult internet users say they have used a search engine to find information about someone from their past.

19% of adult internet users have searched for information about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors.
11% of adult internet users say they have searched online for information about someone they are thinking about hiring or working with.

9% of online adults say they have searched online for information about someone they are dating or in a relationship with. Perhaps due to safety concerns, online women tend to do their dating homework more than online men.

Basic contact information tops most searchers' wish lists.

Despite all the new forms of personal information available online, the most popular type of "people search" relates to finding someone's contact information, like an address or phone number.

72% of people searchers have sought contact information online.

37% of people searchers look to the Web for information about someone's professional accomplishments or interests.

33% of people searchers have sought out someone's profile on a social and professional networking site.

31% have searched for someone's photo.

31% have searched for someone else's public records, such as real estate transactions, divorce proceedings, bankruptcies, or other legal actions.

28% have searched for someone's personal background information.

Reference: Pew Research Center

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US Public Records Search - How to Search US Public Records

US Public Records Search - How to Search US Public Records

US Public Records search can be carried out at various resources. Generally, you can find such records in the government archives, courts, places of worship like churches, and other public community centers. Most services are not free though. You may wish to note that there are specific rules and regulations governing the way the information obtained can be used when you search US public records.

The major search engines are excellent archives when it comes to searching US public records. Records that are published on websites can be found quite quickly on the internet. Government websites that are accessible to the public can also allow you to conduct a search using their public records databases.

However, one thing most people find irritating is to have to dig through piles and piles of irrelevant information in order to find what they want. On top of that, there are no central databases that hold every piece of record together. So you can be searching for birth records at one place and the next moment digging for information on the person's residential address at the other location. Many public records are still stored and tucked away in some old store rooms.

You can also hire a private investigator if you think you can afford it. The PI would help you to run the errands and conduct the necessary checks for you on the records. This process can take a while and you need to be prepared to wait for at least a few weeks to a couple of months before you can find the information you need. This really depends on how much details go into the report. And it can be quite expensive and not everyone can stomach that.

It is until recently those online portals that provide an integrated database for US public records search appear. These services can offer you a wide array of records. When you do search there, you can find practically any record from birth and death records to bankruptcy records and even family tree records. So if you want to do a detailed background check on a person, you probably can find more information about him or her that he or she may even know.

The services are paid naturally. The mode of payment can be either a one-time membership fee for unlimited US public records searches or a per search fee. Most people would rather opt for the unlimited access to search US public records. The fee is less than $60 in a lot of cases for a paid membership.

So if you want to find out more about the most widely searched online portals you can use to search US public records, come to my records blog.

Instantly search US public records immediately to track down every public record you want. Also learn how to conduct a public records search.

Reference: ezinearticles.com

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Culver Tells Agencies to Charge for Review of Public Records

Gov. Chet Culver is asking state agencies to begin charging for the cost of having attorney review information requested under the state's open-records law.

Many city and state agencies have charged citizens or the media to retrieve and copy records, but they have not passed along the cost of having attorneys review the records.

Open records experts said such a fee, estimated at as much as $35 an hour, is largely untested in Iowa courts and across the country.

"Lawyers are expensive," said Kathleen Richardson, executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. "Even if a request doesn't take a whole lot of time, it will still add a whole lot of money to the cost."

The decision by Culver's office to begin charging for attorneys to review documents follows two large, unrelated requests for public e-mails by The Des Moines Register in March.

James Larew, an attorney for the governor, said the requests would have involved thousands of e-mails.

Larew said the governor's office has considered the matter of handling requests for large amounts of public information for more than a year. He said the governor's office consulted with the attorney general's office about the new charge.

"Our goal overall has been, and continues to be, to keep Iowa open records as available as the statute would allow but also to make sure costs are not unduly borne to the taxpayer," he said.

Culver's office has not provided agencies with any guidelines as to when they should charge for an attorney's time.

The state's open records law says a "reasonable fee" can be charged to retrieve copy and supervise the examination of records.

It also reads: "Actual costs shall include only those expenses directly attributable to supervising the examination of, and making and providing copies of public records. Actual costs shall not include charges for ordinary expenses."

Even without charging for legal review, the cost of retrieving documents can be expensive.

Iowa State University charged the Register $745 to search and copy nine CDs of e-mails.

Lucy Dalglish of the Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a watchdog group for government openness, said Iowa's law leaves more discretion for such costs than some other states.

"I don't like statutes that allow states to charge for retrieval costs, but ... if you run a public agency, the last thing you want to do is have one of your lawyers spending several days reviewing" e-mails, she said.

The Register pared back one of its requests made in March, but Culver's office wants the newspaper to pay more than $3,100 for two lawyers from one agency to spend about 103 hours to review 10 months of e-mails.

In the newspaper's second request, made from a different agency, the cost of a technician to retrieve existing e-mails from two computers was more than $2,300. The estimated cost of an attorney to review the e-mails was 551 hours of time at a cost of more than $20,000.

The governor's office said the two requests could have yielded as many as 40,000 e-mails.

The Register has not paid the legal fees and neither of the requests have been fulfilled.

Reference: chicagotribune.com

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'Silver Alert' Shows Success in Finding Missing Elderly

All but 3 who disappeared have been found in time to save their lives, statistics say

The state's new Amber Alert-style system for finding lost elderly people has been highly effective so far, helping to locate all 30 seniors who've been reported.

Since "Silver Alert" went into effect seven months ago, the missing people were located in time to save their lives all but three times, according to state statistics reported in Saturday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The system is modeled after the Amber Alert, named after Arlington's Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old who was abducted and killed in 1996. The system notifies the public when a child is reported missing.

The "Silver Alert" is designed to inform the public when older people with mental impairments such as Alzheimer's disease are lost and may be in danger.

Last week the system helped track down 80-year-old Lawrence White, of Bedford, who went for a drive then was lost for nine hours. A Fort Worth police officer saw White walking out of a store looking confused, then ran his license plate to learn he had been missing.

"Oh, our family is so thankful for that system and everyone who helped to find him," said White's wife, Bobbie.

To activate a Silver Alert, law enforcement must contact the Governor's Division of Emergency Management. Once confirmed, the Texas Department of Public Safety alerts local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, the news media and various state agencies.

The program was approved in the 2007 legislative session, a bill pushed because about 900 seniors were reported missing each year.

The number of alerts has outpaced the better-known Amber Alert system, which responded to just 38 alerts in its six years. And the number of Silver Alerts is expected to increase as the state's population ages.

The state has more than 2.7 million residents older than 60, according to the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services in Austin. Within 25 years, that number will be about 7.4 million.

"I believe we are seeing more reports because of the success of the Amber Alert," DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said. "Law enforcement agencies are aware of what the Amber Alert has done to find missing children so they'll use it for elderly residents."

Reference: chron.com

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Public Should Be Able to See Election Records

Our view: Technology shouldn't negate the people's right to check voting results

Pima County seems to have learned some lessons from the monumentally botched handling of voting during the Presidential Preference Election in February.

The county is also planning steps to enhance the security of its election system, but it is fighting to keep its election results database confidential.

First the good news. On Monday, the county announced that its first Poll Worker Academy will begin in May. Officials hope to train 2,400 potential poll workers by August, according to a memo from Brad Nelson, director of the Pima County elections division.

After a six-hour class, each pupil will take a written test. Those who fail will either be assigned limited roles on the next Election Day or won't be allowed to work in a polling place, Nelson said.

Those who pass the written test will become "Certified Poll Workers" and will undergo more training before the Sept. 2 primary election for state and county offices.

Nelson said county elections staff also is working on an on-site survey of all 400 potential polling places to assure that each is "adequate to serve as a polling place" and accessible for disabled voters.

We applaud the county's efforts: These two changes alone should go a long way toward improving the voting experience.

During the February primary, some election workers were so slow in verifying voters' identities that lines extended out the door while voting booths stood empty.

Some workers were befuddled by identification requirements and the procedure for casting provisional ballots. Problems with optical scanners, and confusion about polling places and eligibility to vote turned the day into a nightmare for many voters.

Unfortunately, what happens after the next Election Day is still in dispute.

The county and the Pima Democratic Party were in court on Monday arguing about access to elections databases.
The Democratic Party sued in an effort to obtain more than 1,100 election-result databases and in December, Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Miller ordered the county to release the databases for the 2006 primary and general elections.

The county argued that if its databases are routinely released along with passwords and embedded software, then eventually hackers will get enough information to figure out a way to sabotage the system.

Miller said the databases fall under state public-records law and that political parties could not fulfill their duty to monitor the election without access to them.

The county complied; releasing those election results and also results from the Regional Transportation Authority vote.

On Monday, the Democrats asked Miller to require the county to release databases in time for objections to be raised before the election result is formally finalized. Miller did not rule.

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said early this month that he would ask Secretary of State Jan Brewer to redefine the records as computer programs, which are not subject to public-records law.

Brewer said in an interview Monday that while she believes that Pima County "is taking the right position on keeping the database information confidential" because of security concerns, she does not have the authority to redefine the database as a program.

"The Legislature would have to do that," Brewer said.

Huckelberry has recommended about two dozen changes to enhance election security, including having consultants check out the county's computer system, hand-counting more ballots, dividing control over elections-tabulation hardware and software so that county employees can't change software after it's certified by the secretary of state, and improving ballot-verification procedures and chain-of-custody records.

Meanwhile, the county supervisors voted 3-2 in January to ask county employees to figure out how to make scans of actual ballots and put them online on the night of an election. Given that nearly 400,000 ballots would have to be scanned, we fear this solution would be too time-consuming and expensive.

We appreciate the county's concern about assuring the security and integrity of the voting system: If voters aren't confident that their vote will be counted and that elections are not rigged, then our system of government would be undermined, even unraveled.

But the public has a right to review election results as it always has. The use of computer programs hasn't changed that.

We hope through its continuing work to improve the voting process and enhance its system of security, the county will find a way to share results without risking the integrity of the system. The law is the law.

Reference: azstarnet.com

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White House Challenges Release of Visitor Logs

A federal appeals court sought compromise Monday between a liberal group demanding the names of White House visitors and the Bush administration, which says releasing the names would erode the president's power.

If released, the documents would show how often prominent religious conservatives visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence, allowing a glimpse into how much influence they exerted on government policy.

White House calendars are not generally considered public records, but reporters and watchdog groups have used Secret Service documents, which normally are public, to report on White House visitors.

Rather than having those documents released on a case-by-casis basis, the Bush administration wants them considered White House documents, which would keep them from public view for more than a decade.

A federal judge rejected White House arguments in December and ordered the documents released.

On appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, government attorneys said the president has a well-established right to seek advice privately.

Releasing lists of visitors would trample on that right, said Justice Department lawyer Jonathan F. Cohn, and the logs should be treated like other White House documents.

The judges were skeptical. They said they wanted to find a way to protect the president's rights without broadly prohibiting access to information that should be public.

"What in the documents are so quintessentially presidential?" asked Judge David S. Tatel.

"The name of the person going in to visit," Cohn replied.

"That's a public building," Tatel said. "You can stand out on 17th Street and watch who goes in and out."

"The Secret Service might have some qualms with that," Cohn responded.

"They might have some qualms but they couldn't stop you from doing it," said Chief Judge David B. Sentelle.

Rather than balancing the president's interest with the public's, Tatel said, the government was simply disregarding the Freedom of Information Act. He said the policy would allow the president to "draw a curtain around the White House."

Judge Merrick B. Garland said he was concerned the Bush administration's policy could extend to other White House agencies such as the budget office, which normally releases public records.

Under the government's theory, Garland said, visits to the White House social planner, caterer and gardener would all be secret because the president needs to receive advice privately.

The judges seemed equally dissatisfied with the argument of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group seeking the documents. Sentelle and Tatel said the group was using the Secret Service as an end-run, a way to get documents that normally would not be public.

"I think Congress would be surprised that, by requiring the president to receive Secret Service protection, it was opening up his calendars," Tatel said.

Sentelle became frustrated and at one point put his head in his hands after pressing attorney Anne L. Weismann to acknowledge that the president must be allowed to seek advice privately.

He repeatedly urged her to explain how to balance the two interests.

"I don't understand what you don't understand," Sentelle said. "You're not acknowledging the separation-of-powers problem."

The judges pressed both sides to offer a compromise that would strike the right balance. Government lawyers said they couldn't discern from the logs which meetings were presidential policy meetings and which ones might not be sensitive, such as a meeting with the White House gardener. Weismann bristled at the idea that the government's only solution was blanket secrecy.

"I haven't heard from you a counter-suggestion," Tatel told Weismann. "We've never had a case like this."

Garland seemed to search for a solution short of the government's blanket secrecy but that would not allow journalists and special-interest groups to regularly request the names of every visitor to the White House. Under that scenario, he said, the president could never ensure that any meeting was confidential.

The court did not immediately rule on the case.

Nearly two dozen news organizations, including The Associated Press, filed court documents supporting the release of the Secret Service logs.

During the administration of President Clinton, political opponents made extensive use of Secret Service logs documenting White House visits by donors, money-raisers, pardon-seekers and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Reference: ap.google.com

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Voter Registration Cards are Public Records

Cape Girardeau County Clerk Kara Clark said she provided the copy the 1972 voter registration card used to certify Lawrence McBryde's 2001 easement signature.

Voter registrations are public record, she said, and she was complying with the state's Sunshine Law, which requires that copies of public documents must be provided within three days of a request.

"I've made copies for other people before on different things," she said. "If we give it to anyone other than the individual, we redact their Social Security number."

Clark said she was unaware the copy was being used for notarization purposes. She said Robb McClary came into her office looking for McBryde's card on a busy day just before the April 8 election.

"I had no idea what he was doing. The only thing he told me was that he was using it to verify a signature," she said.

Sherri Lomedico, a voter registration deputy for the county, wondered why such an old document was used.

"My signature's not the same as it was in 1972," she said.

Asked how often the registration cards are used to verify documents being notarized, Lomedico said, "Probably never. We do, in our office for absentee ballots, and we have to check whenever there are petitions. We have to check their signature with the voter's registration card."

She said registration cards are kept on file as long as a voter is "active, still here and still alive."

Reference: semissourian.com

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