What is a passive digital footprint?
Reviewed by Anthon Wansland
Head of Product & Co-Founder
Serus is a privacy company with paid tools to find and remove your personal data. This page is free and based on official sources.
Definition
A passive digital footprint is the data collected about you online without you deliberately sharing it, such as your IP address, device details, location and browsing activity.
- Category
- Privacy
- Also called
- passive footprint, passive data trail
- Last updated
Sources checked: cisa.gov, ico.org.uk
Last verified against the official page:
Your digital footprint has two halves. The active half is what you choose to put out: posts, comments, forms you fill in, accounts you open. The passive half is what gets collected while you just use the internet, phone or apps.
CISA's guidance on limiting your digital footprint says interactions with your devices and apps let companies learn about where you shop, your health and your hobbies without you telling them directly. It points to the advertising ID that most operating systems assign to a device. That ID helps collect location data, browser activity and information apps gather.
The ICO describes another route, device fingerprinting. It combines pieces of information about a device's software or hardware to identify the device and its user. Unlike cookies, it relies on signals you can't easily wipe.
An example
You install a free weather app and allow location access. You never typed your address anywhere, but the app and its partners can see where you spend your nights and days. That trail is passive: you took no action to publish it.
Why it matters
Passive data is what advertisers and data brokers (companies that collect and sell personal info) build profiles from. You can't delete what you didn't know existed, so the first step is cutting off the collection.
How to protect yourself
- 1
Turn off your advertising ID
CISA recommends disabling the Ad ID on your phone as a first step. It's a setting in your privacy or ads menu.
- 2
Review app permissions
Remove location, contacts and microphone access from apps that don't need it. CISA warns that loose permissions raise the risk of your data being shared or sold.
- 3
Block trackers in your browser
Use a browser or setting that blocks third-party cookies and tracking, and clear site data now and then.
- 4
Check what is already listed about you
Serus finds where your address and phone number are listed and removes them, so the data trail that reaches data brokers shrinks.
See where your personal data is exposed
Serus finds it on data brokers and people-search sites and removes it.
Frequently asked
What is the difference between an active and a passive digital footprint?
An active footprint is data you share on purpose, like posts and sign-up forms. A passive footprint is collected without you doing anything, like device details and location.
Can I delete my passive digital footprint?
Not all of it. You can stop new collection by switching off the ad ID and limiting permissions, and you can ask companies that hold your data to delete it.
Is a VPN enough to stop passive tracking?
No. A VPN hides your IP address but doesn't stop app permissions, ad IDs or logged-in tracking.
Sources
- Limit Your Digital Footprint · cisa.gov
- Our response to Google’s policy change on fingerprinting · ico.org.uk
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