Digital Traces

Digital Traces (myshadow.org) is a privacy awareness platform developed by Tactical Tech that helps investigators and researchers understand the digital footprints left behind by online activity. Rather than being a surveillance tool itself, it functions as an educational and analytical resource that maps how data brokers, apps, and online services collect and share personal information.

For OSINT practitioners, Digital Traces is most useful during the reconnaissance and profiling phases of an investigation. It provides structured information about what data categories are harvested by different platforms, which third-party brokers receive that data, and how those data flows create long-term identity trails. This knowledge allows investigators to understand what information is likely available about a subject and which data aggregators may hold records on them.

Investigators use Digital Traces to identify the ecosystem of commercial surveillance around a target. When you know that a particular app or service shares data with specific brokers, you can then query those brokers directly during a people-OSINT investigation. It effectively creates a map of where to look next.

The platform also documents how location data, browsing habits, purchase history, and social graph connections are commoditized. This is directly applicable when investigating advertising fraud, stalkerware cases, or any scenario where understanding third-party data sharing is relevant to the case.

Key use cases include privacy impact assessments before operational security actions, identifying which data brokers to submit deletion requests to during a target's counter-OSINT sweep, and educating clients or colleagues about their digital exposure.

Limitations to note: Digital Traces does not provide real-time lookups or live data on specific individuals. It is a reference and awareness tool, not a query interface. It is best used in combination with direct broker queries (Spokeo, BeenVerified, Intelius) and breach data sources. The underlying research may also lag behind rapidly changing data-sharing agreements between platforms.

Always document your session with timestamps and record which data flows were relevant to your investigative hypothesis before pivoting to direct data broker searches.