Have you ever wondered about your fingerprint?
In an era where the Internet is omnipresent in our daily lives, due to the increasing number of services we access digitally, this question is perhaps worth asking.
If you are interested in your digital privacy and want to know the trace you have left on the web with your data, you can take a look at Mining, a web service that can help you gain awareness and take action.
Indeed, faced with the growing mistrust of the general public concerning the treatment that certain companies and online services reserve for the private lives of their users, the company Mine was created with the aim of " to help people take ownership of their data, make their own decisions and reclaim what is theirs"
With Mine, you can effectively discover and manage what the Internet knows about you: your so-called digital footprint. These are traces of personal data that you leave behind every time you interact with an online service. These traces can include different types of data, such as your name, email address, home or work address, phone number, credit card information, passport, social security number, identification number, behavioral data, and more. By exercising your legally guaranteed “right to be forgotten,” you can permanently delete data held by various companies.
This doesn't mean you should limit your Internet usage, though. The traditional approach in the privacy industry is to " propose solutions that put up barriers around you and, in some cases, even try to dissuade you from using the Internet", specifies the presentation of this service. Mine allows you to enjoy the benefits of an online presence, while making informed decisions about your personal data, to keep them only where you really need them.
The paradox is that in order to help you, Mine accesses some of your personal data. But the site specifies that it is obliged to do so in order to be able to manage this personal information… and not to profit from it. Moreover, this service complies with the regulations in force within the framework of the GDPR.
The service is completely free at the moment, but the developers warn that they will soon implement subscription systems to fund the site. If a service is free, it is because its revenue is generated otherwise.". The objective of Mine is precisely not to monetize your personal data!
How does it work?
The service works through non-intrusive technology that reconstructs your digital fingerprint, scanning your inbox, looking only at the subject lines of your emails, the sender (to identify the digital service) and the number of times they appear in your inbox. They claim to never read, process or collect the content of the emails.
This will tell you how many companies have your data, what the risk of a data breach is in each case, the sensitivity of the data each company has and you will also receive advice on any letters you may receive on this matter.
Mine works with Google or Microsoft mailboxes.
Once you have identified the services that have your data, you can use Mine to request deletion of this data.
At this stage Mine is not able to make data deletion requests on all online services, but we can hope that the tool continues its development and regularly increases its coverage!
