Digital Biographical Profiles: A Conceptual Model of Exposure in Social Networks

Abstract

A Digital Social Network is a group of people who are connected to each other through a software platform that provides support for each one to define their profile and communicate with others. The profile that a person defines in said Digital Social Network is called “digital biographical profile”. The vulnerability regarding their privacy may be unknown to users, because they are not aware of the risks to which they are exposed, due to the assumption of being supported by a platform "with established conditions of privacy care". Exposure in a digital biographical profile entails a great responsibility, and each person must be the custodian of their privacy. The objective of this work is to propose a conceptual model of digital biographical profiles, exposure increase factors, and associated forms of mitigation, which will serve as the basis for the implementation of computer tools for user awareness. The proposed model can be used as a strategy to protect the exposure of people in digital social networks, which allows mitigating attacks that compromise their privacy and that of their environment.