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We all leave traces in the digital world, even if we don’t actively participate. To provide a simple introduction to the topic, I’d like to begin with a brief example. Let’s assume we’ve never used any service from the Facebook universe (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram) and therefore don’t have a profile on this social network. However, we do have a phone and a circle of friends who use at least one Facebook service. Facebook then reads our phone’s contact list via the apps on our smartphones and compares it to its own database. People who can’t be associated with any Facebook user can still be linked via network algorithms, allowing for the creation of mutual acquaintance lists. If you’re then at a party and people take photos of you, which are subsequently uploaded to Facebook, it’s easy for someone in your circle of acquaintances to tag and identify you by name. No matter how careful we are to avoid entering the digital realm, the uncontrolled collection of data is unavoidable.

Of course, data collection on individuals goes much further, and Edward Snowden’s revelations have confirmed some explosive details. But we don’t have to go that far. We leave many digital footprints without thinking, and this information is publicly accessible to everyone. The topic we’re discussing here is called Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), which deals exclusively with information publicly available through social media, etc.