What's Your Digital Identity?

Inspired by the workshop 'Discover and protect your digital identity' held by Matthias Lüfkens (@Luefkens), Stephane Koch (@stephanekoch) and Azeem Azhar (@azeem) at the Lift Conference 2011.

Have you ever googled yourself? No? Well, you should! Has it ever occurred to you that in real life, one usually just has one identity, while online your private and your public life usually mix? Let's think about it: Is LinkedIn really your professional profile? Is Facebook your private profile? And do both of them show an online identity you're proud of?

Last week's workshop started off with a blast. It seemed as if Matthias Lüfkens had googled every one of the participants, trying to find out if their public and private online identity matched. It did in some cases and it didn't in other cases. Or would you hire someone with a perfect CV on LinkedIn, after having stumbled across a picture of him testing a toilet, which he had posted on Facebook? Well...good question.

The workshop made it quite apparent that it today's society it is essential to check your online identity and to take care of it. Count to two before posting an update to all of your friends and think twice before uploading those pictures from the weekend. A first step would be to check your Facebook privacy settings (tutorial), before going through the links we received in the workshop to help us maintain our online identity.

So, what should you do if you really want to share those vacation pics or those embarrassing party pictures with your friends but don't want to upload them to Facebook? Turn to Wuala. All files are encrypted before they are uploaded, so no one, not even we as the provider can access the files. Since you define who can access the files it is up to you with whom you share the files directly. In case you're looking for a solution to share your pictures in a group, I highly recommend to create a private group and have all group members upload the pictures to that group.

Your online identity is an important aspect of your digital life. Start caring about it and don't forget to think about security and privacy when using an online service.