Digital footprint quiz: eight questions about your own settings
Most footprint advice tells you the internet never forgets. This asks eight specific questions about what is switched on right now, and tells you which ones to change.
There is a version of this subject that consists of being warned that everything is permanent. It is technically true, entirely unhelpful, and easy to stop listening to. This quiz does something narrower: it asks what is currently visible, and then names the switches.
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What each answer means, and the switch that changes it
- No. A public account is discoverable by strangers, and discoverability is the precondition for most of what follows. Private does not create secrecy, but it removes reach.
- No. Discovery is a separate switch from visibility and is usually left on. Turning it off is one tap and closes the easiest route to linking your accounts together.
- No. A distinctive handle used in several places is the connective tissue that turns three unrelated accounts into one searchable person. Keep gaming handles separate.
- No. The network is information. A public follower list tells a stranger who you know, where you study and who to impersonate, regardless of how private the posts are.
- No. Many phones record it by default. It matters most for photographs taken at home or at school, and switching it off takes about ten seconds in the camera settings.
- No. What other people post about you is the part almost everyone underestimates. Tag approval puts that back under your control.
- No. The forgotten account is the one still indexed, and often the one that later appears in a breach. Emptying it gets most of the benefit if deleting is not possible.
- Yes. That search is the entire inventory, and it takes two minutes. Almost nobody who does it finds exactly what they expected.
Why it asks about settings rather than about behaviour
Advice about being careful what you post assumes the main risk is a bad decision. In practice most of what a stranger can find was never a decision at all. It was a default. A public follower list, discovery by phone number, location saved into a photograph: nobody chose any of those, and each one is a single switch.
That is also why the “not sure” answers are the interesting ones. Every question you could not answer is a setting nobody in the household has looked at, and those are where the surprises live when you go and check.
The reused username, which nobody thinks about
One distinctive handle used on a game, a forum and an account with your real name links all three into a single searchable person. It is the most effective connector there is, and it is invisible because each account individually looks fine.
The fix costs nothing going forward: keep gaming handles separate from anything attached to a real name. It is worth doing even if the accounts themselves are private, because a username is visible whether or not the posts are.
The twenty-minute fix
Work through it in this order: account to private, discovery by phone and email off, location off in the camera app, tag approval on, follower list hidden, then old accounts emptied or deleted. That sequence closes the widest routes first, which matters if you only have ten minutes, not twenty.
The full reasoning for each of those, and what a private account still leaves visible, is on the privacy and footprint page. The short version: private reduces reach, it does not create secrecy, and anything sent to another person has left your control entirely.
Using it with a class
It works better than a content quiz with anyone past about fourteen, because it asks about their own accounts instead of invented scenarios they can see through. Run it individually, then discuss which questions produced a “not sure”; that show of hands is the lesson.
For younger classes the internet safety quiz is the better fit: it tests the rules rather than assuming the pupil already has accounts to configure.
Questions about the footprint quiz
Does this collect any information about me?
No. Every question is answered in your browser and nothing is transmitted or stored. Reload the page and it is gone.
Why does it ask what I already know?
Because most people are wrong about two or three of them. The interesting part is not the score but the questions you answered “not sure” to; those are the settings nobody has checked.
I scored badly. Is the damage done?
Mostly not. Almost everything the quiz asks about is a switch that can be changed today, and the past posts that matter are far fewer than people fear. The exception is anything already sent to another person, which is why that is the one to be careful about going forward.
What is the single most useful change?
Turning off discovery by phone number and email. It is one tap, it is nearly always left on, and it is the easiest route someone has to finding accounts you thought were separate.
Should my parents see my answers?
Your call: nothing is shared automatically. Doing it alongside an adult tends to be more useful than doing it alone, because they usually score worse than they expect and the conversation goes better from there.
Is deleting old accounts really necessary?
Emptying them gets most of the benefit if deleting is difficult. The forgotten account is the one still appearing in search results and the one most likely to turn up in a future breach.