Public Exposure
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What it is
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The threat of your personal information being accessible online — to search engines, or to the public at large — regardless of who's doing the looking.
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Why it matters
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Unlike surveillance by a specific adversary, public exposure is about total accessibility: once something about you is public, effectively anyone can find it, forever, with no targeting required.
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How it works
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The most reliable fix is not producing the exposure in the first place: deleting old accounts/information, and setting existing accounts to private so they aren't indexed by search engines and can't be viewed without permission. For information already exposed and unremovable, a disinformation tactic can help — deliberately submitting fictitious information tied to the same online identity, so your real information becomes harder to distinguish from noise.
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