Shawn Lees-Carr

SLM 521 Elective 7

Privacy Concerns

9^th grade/high school students

Keep Snoopers Out of Your Business

Protect Your Privacy

DIRECTIONS: Answer the following questions as honestly as possible.

When you have been on-line, have you ever:

1. Shared information about your name and address or your friends’ names and addresses on-line?

2. Posted photos and videos of you and/or your friends

3. Bought something that required credit card or bank account information?

4. Completed a survey about your likes, dislikes, hobbies, shopping preferences, etc.?

5. Deleted your browsing history?

6. Thoroughly read the privacy policy of the sites you visit so you know what they do with your information?

7. Reviewed the cookies on your computer?

8. Visited a website that you probably shouldn’t have?

9. Allowed a good friend to use your user name and password?

10. Lied about information you provided?

If you answered “Yes” to all the questions, except #5, #6, #7, you could be sharing too much of yourself with people you don’t even know.

See how the following guidelines can help you cover up your personal business better.

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself! It’s just silly Mrs. Carr! J

Creepy, Weird Feelings. If you feel weird or nervous about something, trust your gut instinct. In person, you can really tell a lot more about someone. On-line, people can be deceptive and pretend to be things they are not. In fact, surveys have found that many people frequently lie on-line. So if something seems a little off, you’re probably best to be wary, especially if they share too much too soon about themselves, talk about sex or inappropriate subjects, tell you extremely unreasonable things.

Revealing Screen Names. Remember, log-in names and screen names can say a lot about a person. In fact, some adults need to follow this advice! What would your boss have to say about this email or screen name: Pimpinpoppa? The name 2sexy4u may invite unwelcomed attention.

Respect: Give It/Get It. You like to be treated with respect when interacting with people. The same goes for on-line interactions. One way to show respect is by not sharing private information about other people. You don’t want people talking behind your back at school, so don’t do it on-line. You also don’t want to share Tom’s party plans and have his psycho ex-girlfriend stalker track him down and cause problems!

MySpace Mischief. Yeah, yeah, you already know, don’t post specific information on your MySpace and Facebook pages. But even your plans for the weekend can give someone enough information to find you, particularly if your picture is on your site. The same goes for your friends. You shouldn’t share their information or pictures.

Pictures Can Say 1,000 Words. Speaking of pictures, don’t post pictures that you would be embarrassed to show your grandmother or future boss. You may think it’s just being funny or not serious, but not everyone who sees your site will know that.

In fact, you may risk not getting the job or getting into the college you want. You could even get kicked off a team or organization. More and more people are checking these public social sites, so if you share it with one person, be prepared to share it with the world.

Private Party. Set your privacy levels! Why give away your information for free? Why let everyone see everything? Have a little mystery to your life!

If there are no privacy levels, check for a privacy statement. A strong privacy statement will tell you what personal information is collected and how it will be used. You should be given a choice whether or not they can use this information. You should be able to check this personal information to fix any problems, and the site should provide adequate security so your information isn’t stolen, misused, etc.

Private Labels. Give your business and attention to sites that have strong security systems and privacy seals. Some sites use icons and labels to indicate that the site views privacy as a serious issue. For example, some sites, including Facebook, use the TRUSTe seal. This organization monitors businesses to ensure they follow the strict standards held by TRUSTe. Other logos to look form on business sites may be the Better Business Bureau, the Verisign icon, the closed lock, etc.

Don’t Go Phishing! Phishing is when criminals try to get you to share personal and financial information by pretending to be a real, popular business or website. If you use iTunes a lot, you may get a “fake” email from iTunes saying you need to provide some personal or financial information about your account because of some problem. It’s best to check any of these types of emails with the actual company. Many companies will say that they will not request this type of information in the form of an email. Be very cautious when dealing with an email and link that don’t relate directly to the company’s .com address.

Cashing In on Caching. When you add items to the internet through blogging, profiles, chatting, etc. all this information is probably cached or permanently stored, even after you remove it or change it. This practice can be particularly troublesome when using public computers at schools and libraries. A cache could be storing your personal information and browsing history for the next personal to find.

Clear out the cache by going to the menu bar while browsing and looking for “Preferences” or the folder that has internet options. Click on “delete browsing history” or “empty cache.” Then close the browser.

Also, some sites, trying to be helpful, ask if you want them to remember your password or save it. Be safe and refuse this offer!

These Cookies Aren’t for Eating! When you buy things, complete surveys and visit certain sites, your computer may get stuffed with cookies, little tags of information which businesses can use to identify your preferences. This could provide you with more ads, emails, etc. While it may not seem like a big deal, you are still allowing someone or some business to use your information. Usually when you perform maintenance on your computer, a disk cleanup will pull up a lot of these cookies. Clean the pantry out once and while!

It May be Free, but It Won’t Be Cheap! Free downloads and file-sharing software may come with more than you bargained for! You could be adding spyware to your computer. Read ALL the agreements and avoid sharing personal information. Make sure you are knowledgeable about the software you are downloading. And install antispyware and virus protection programs to help avoid these silent stalkers!

Some interesting information from a Lenhart and Madden Pew 2007 internet study of teenager on-line use. This study contains many useful anecdotes and interviews that could be shared with students.

Statistics provided by:

Lenhart, Amanda and Madden, Mary. Teens, Privacy & Online Social Networks. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, April 18, 2007.

Teens post a variety of things on their profiles, but a first name and photo are standard.

Fully 55% of online teens have profiles; here is a rundown of the kinds of information they post:

􀂄 82% of profile creators have included their first name in their profiles

􀂄 79% have included photos of themselves.

􀂄 66% have included photos of their friends.

􀂄 61% have included the name of their city or town.

􀂄 49% have included the name of their school.

􀂄 40% have included their instant message screen name.

􀂄 40% have streamed audio to their profile.

􀂄 39% have linked to their blog.

􀂄 29% have included their email address.

􀂄 29% have included their last names.

􀂄 29% have included videos.

􀂄 2% have included their cell phone numbers.

􀂄 6% of online teens and 11% of profile-owning teens post their first and last names on publicly-accessible profiles;

􀂄 3% of online teens and 5% of profile-owning teens disclose their full names, photos of themselves and the town where they live in publicly-viewable profiles.

Using all this information, how could we track down the kids?