OSINT Research Hub › Defensive Privacy
How to Audit Your Own Digital Footprint
A defensive OSINT checklist for seeing what the internet reveals about you, removing what you can and locking down the rest.
Turn OSINT on yourself
The best way to understand open-source intelligence is to run it on yourself. A digital footprint audit shows what a stranger, a scammer or a stalker could learn about you in an afternoon, and gives you a list of things to fix. Do this for yourself, or for someone who has asked you to and is sitting with you. Auditing another person without their consent is not defence.
Search like a stranger would
- Search your full name in quotes, with and without your city, in Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo.
- Search your usernames, email addresses and phone number in quotes.
- Run your profile photos through reverse image search to find where else they appear.
- Check the first two pages of image results, not just web results.
Keep a simple log: what was found, where, how sensitive it is and what you will do about it.
Check breaches and remove results
- Have I Been Pwned tells you which data breaches included your email address. Change any reused passwords from those sites first.
- Google’s Results about you tool lets you request removal of search results that show your phone number, home address or email.
- Many data-broker sites, mostly U.S.-based, offer opt-out forms. Remove the listings, then check again in a few months, because they often return.
- Close accounts you no longer use. JustDeleteMe links straight to the deletion page for hundreds of services.
Lock down what stays
- Review privacy settings on every social account: who can see your friends list, tagged photos, birthday and location.
- Turn off location history and remove location tags from old posts.
- Strip metadata from photos before sharing them outside social platforms.
- Use a password manager and unique passwords everywhere.
- Turn on two-factor authentication, ideally with a hardware security key or an authenticator app rather than SMS.
Repeat it
Your footprint grows every week. Repeat the audit every six months, and after any major life change such as a move, a new job or a public appearance.