What Is Open Source Information?
Open Source Information is information that is available to anyone on the internet. If you’ve ever “google’d yourself” you’ve accessed the open source information available on you. It can be a bit creepy, finding out exactly what information about you is available for anyone to see. It can also be dangerous.
“Doxxing” and “Swatting” are terms used for when someone malicious gets your information and uses it against you. Sometimes these things end up OK and the person involved in the attack has justice served on them. Sometimes people end up dead.
In today’s data-greased digital era, your information can end up in open-source repositories in myriads of different ways. Sometimes a trusted storage system gets hacked, sometimes its businesses intentionally selling your data, and sometimes you’re tricked into giving them your data.
Fortunately, there are laws today that require open-source intelligence gathering sites to get rid of your information if you ask them to. GDPR (the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) both have these requirements built into them.
There is nearly no way to know where all this information is stored. It’s a digital hydra: remove your information from one website and it might pop up on two different sites. Don’t let that stop you. When it comes to your digital privacy, any step in the right direction means that you are safer than you were before.
I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. I found a really great article by LifeWire on removing your information from open-source locations. Please follow that link and take the time to go through each of those steps.
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