Instructor, MI239
Digital Footprints: Privacy and Cybersecurity

Michigan State University
Department of Media and Information

Offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Summer 2019, Spring 2020, Summer 2020, Spring 2021, Summer 2021, Spring 2022, Summer 2022, Spring 2023

Each of us intentionally and unintentionally leaves behind digital information traces, our “digital footprint”, as we go about our daily lives. This course will provide a high-level overview of different kinds of technologies involved in capturing this information, who owns it and controls it, and how it is used to both make our lives easier and at the same time more publicly visible. The goal of this course is to increase awareness of what others can learn about you through these digital traces, to think about what we might be gaining (and losing) as individuals and society by allowing our digital footprints to continue to expand, and to debate what future technologies and policies concerning this information should be.