Managing Your Digital Footprint as a Clinic Professional

Specialists and practice principals are unusually visible online — a professional profile on the practice website, a listing on HealthShare or a specialist directory, mentions in industry publications, sometimes a LinkedIn presence built up over a career. That visibility is normal and often useful for referrals. It's also exactly the kind of information a scammer uses to make a phishing email or a phone impersonation sound convincing.

This is what the Australian Digital Health Agency calls a digital footprint: the trail of information — some you post deliberately, some collected passively in the background — that builds up every time you or your staff use the internet. Managing it isn't about disappearing online. It's about knowing what's out there and making sure none of it becomes a lever someone else can pull.

Why this matters for a clinic specifically

A generic phishing email is easy to dismiss. One that references your specialty, a recent conference you attended, or your practice's actual booking process is much harder to spot — and all of that context is often sitting in plain sight from a public profile or old social media post. The more specific an attacker's information, the more convincing the impersonation, whether that's a fake invoice, a fraudulent "urgent" request, or a targeted attempt against a principal specifically (sometimes called "whaling").

Find out what's already out there

Search your own name (and variations — first name plus surname, with a middle initial, with your email address) and see what comes back, including image results. Do the same for the practice name. You can't manage what you don't know is public.

What to actually do about it

• Review and update. If something outdated or unflattering turns up, see whether you can edit or remove it — for old content on a site you don't control, contacting the site administrator is usually the only option.
• Tighten privacy settings. Check what personal social media accounts are sharing publicly versus with a restricted audience, and review which apps on your phone have access to photos, location, and contacts.
• Think before you post. The old advice still holds: once something is public, you've lost control of who sees it and what they do with it. This applies as much to a well-meaning practice social media post as to a personal one — double-check there's nothing sensitive visible in the background of any clinic photo before it goes up.
• Clean up as you go. Clear browsing history after sessions involving anything sensitive, and only search for personal information from a trusted, private connection — not public Wi-Fi.
• Set expectations with others. Family, friends, and colleagues can post about you too. A quick conversation about what you're comfortable with heads off a surprise later.
• Review regularly. Platforms change their privacy settings and terms more often than most people check them. A periodic look — six-monthly is reasonable — keeps it current.

The practice-level version of this

The same logic applies to the practice's own online presence: keep the website and any public listings limited to information you're genuinely comfortable being public, and be mindful that staff photos, social posts, and even out-of-office replies can leak more operational detail than intended (who's away, when, and who's covering).

None of this requires new software or a security budget — just periodically checking what's actually visible, and treating "it's just public information" as a real risk factor rather than a harmless fact of modern life.

This article draws on guidance published by the Australian Digital Health Agency.