Any unflattering photos of you online? Comments you made on a friend’s blog that you wish you hadn’t? When you can’t change what’s online about you, you might find yourself wishing you could just walk away from that stuff – disconnect your real-world self from your online self.

The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, thinks you can. He even predicts that in the future, this practice would be commonplace:

“He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.

“I mean we really have to think about these things as a society,” he adds. “I’m not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things,” he says.”

Already, some young people about to apply to university and look for jobs are making it a little harder for people to find them on social networking sites – by substituting middle names for last names, using nicknames, or making up entirely fictional names. However, changing your name legally isn’t nearly as simple as changing your name on Facebook. There is a long list of legal and long-term implications associated with changing your name, not to mention the historical implications of the change – how will your great-great-great-grand-daughter fill in the family tree if you erase all traces of yourself before the age of 18?

What do you think – should we be allowed a name change to escape an embarrassing past? Would you change your name if you could? Have you?

We’re frequently invited to schools to talk about online privacy. And when we’re there, we often hear about the challenges related to kids’ use of technology that educators face daily. For many teachers, the question of their own involvement is murky at best – much of this online activity takes place outside of the schoolyard, often after the end of the school day. But the repercussions of those activities can reach into, and disrupt, the classroom.

Technological solutions, like attempts to limit access to certain websites, seem backwards and futile. The most successful approaches so far seem to be the ones that aim to empower and engage young people, by helping them evolve beyond simply users of technology to become true digital citizens.

A recent study from the U.S. suggests that teachers who are comfortable with technology report greater student learning, specifically when it comes to those skills related to digital citizenship:

“Frequent technology users place considerably more emphasis on developing students’ 21st century skills–specifically, skills in accountability, collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, ethics, global awareness, innovation, leadership, problem solving, productivity and self-direction. Frequent users also have more positive perceptions about technology’s effects on student learning of these skills–and on student behaviors associated with these skills.”

This skill set is increasingly becoming essential for success in our world. Having a true digital citizenry is still a long way away, but the march toward this goal has already started, at home, and in classrooms and libraries and community centres around the world. We need to continue to play and experiment and grow comfortable with these new tools, and we need to encourage those of us around us – teachers included – to do so as well.

Two years ago, we launched our youthprivacy.ca website to engage people on the issues around young people and digital privacy.

When we launched youthprivacy.ca, Twitter had about 500,000 users, Google was rumoured to be entering the mobile phone market, and the idea of managing your digital footprint was just gaining some steam.

To say a lot has changed over the last 24 months would be an understatement.

We want to redesign the site to better present existing and new content, and highlight resources and work being done elsewhere on the topic. We also want the process of rebuilding this website to be open and transparent. We feel that there is a much larger community of public servants and private citizens with the experience, the expertise and the skill sets to make this a useful and highly collaborative exercise.

After all, why build communities of practice if we only continue to build projects within silos and concealed behind departmental garden walls?

We are inviting input from people with interest and expertise from both within government (specifically #w2p and #ux communities of practice, and those with experience reaching out to young people and engaging in public education and social marketing) and external to government (non-profit sector, educators and librarians, young people themselves).

Much of the process will be run on GCpedia to facilitate contribution among Government of Canada employees. For folks external to government without access to GCpedia, we’ll provide some updates on this page – and if you have ideas on how we can open up collaboration to the outside community, let us know.

Check out the wiki page on GCpedia or this page for additional information, and let us know if you interested in pitching in. And I’ll leave you with this thought:

“It’s always easier to tame a wild idea than to invigorate a limp one.”

Congratulations to the Dovercourt Boys and Girls Club from Toronto for their video on how people need to be more careful about the information that they put online. Their video was chosen as one of the winning videos in the Cantech Digital Arts Contest.

If you liked these videos you may also like the ones from our Office’s 2009 National Video Contest. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel to see this year’s winning videos as well as other neat privacy clips. The message being promoted through all these videos is simple; be wary about giving your personal information online and think before you click!

The winning videos from our 2009 National Video Contest for young people are now on our youth web site and our YouTube channel! Be sure to check out the first-, second- and third-place videos in the Live Action, Animation, French Video and Junior categories!

I searched myself online the other day and came up with a profile I had created some years ago, complete with picture and date of birth, name, and e-mail address. So many websites require at least some personal information in order to view exclusive content or enjoy the services provided by the website, it gets difficult keeping track of all the websites I’ve signed up for. Inevitably, some end up being neglected or forgotten. Then, years later, they pop up when I’m feeling bored (and perhaps narcissistic) and searching myself online.

I had the website e-mail me my username and password so I could delete the account (and all of its revealing information) from their server so it wouldn’t appear in the search engine queue. (Luckily I’ve used the same e-mail address for many years). If you find yourself in the same situation but with an unknown or expired e-mail address, you can always write to the moderators or developers of the website and request that your profile be taken down or removed. 

You may be selective with what information you put into an online profile, but with lots of profiles online it can become difficult to keep track of exactly what personal information is available on the web. One website might require a postal code, another a birthdate. Pieced together, these separate profiles can reveal a lot about the user. This combined profile can then be used for targeted marketing or even more malicious purposes. 

Make sure your profile doesn’t come back to haunt you.

Once again, students from the Encounters with Canada program have selected the winners of our annual student video contest! Here are the winners for our 2009 competition:

The three top video artists in the live action category were:

1^st place: Jeffery Burge, Vanessa Caicedo, Alexandra Georgaras, Gareth Imrie and Fiona Sauder of Canterbury High School in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Think Before You Click”. They win a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: David Borish and Mory Kaba of Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Friend or Foe”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Jennifer Paul from Brampton, Ontario, with a video titled “Too Good to be True”. She wins a $150 gift card.

The three top video artists in the animation category were:

1^st place: Tyler Ford and Matthew Kerr of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with a video titled “Privacy: Think Before You Click”. They win a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: Rebecca Kartzmart and Emily Patterson of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with a video titled “Carol the Carrot”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Scott Piper of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with a video titled “Privacy Matters”. He wins a $150 gift card.

The three top video artists in the French video category were:

1^st place: Benjamin Dion-Weiss of l’École secondaire publique De La Salle in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Le réseautage social d’après le Comte Hackula”. He wins a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: Stéphanie Lemieux and Emily Vendette of l’École secondaire catholique Embrun in Embrun, Ontario, with a video titled “Le Journal de Lisa”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Cosmo Darwin of l’École secondaire publique De La Salle in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Trouvée & Perdu”. He wins a $150 gift card.

The three top video artists in the Junior category were:

1^st place: Mackenzie Giffen, Chris Johnstone, Chris Nattrass, Curtis Sookhoo and Gabriel Zingle of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a video titled “The Spanish Lottery”. They win a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: Trevor Aiello, Connor Bergersen, Chad Bullock and Lochlan Thomson of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a video titled “A lesson In Privacy”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Matthew Craner, Scott Deshane, Madison Gilchrist, Joe Matishak and Graeme Wyatt of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a video titled “The Phone Number Test”. They win a $150 gift card.

We also recognized seven teachers for their enthusiastic participation in the contest. They were:

• Crystal Getschel, of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with 26 entries.
• Majed Mattar, of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with 21 entries.
• Professor Kaduri, of Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, Ontario, with 15 entries.
• Grant Holmes, of École secondaire publique De La Salle, Ottawa, Ontario, with 11 entries.
• Carol Shaw, of Woodstock Collegiate Institute, Woodstock, Ontario, with 8 entries.
• Kevin Shae, of Sir Robert Borden High School, Ottawa, Ontario with 6 entries.
• Stephen Willcock, of Canterbury High School, Ottawa, Ontario, with 5 entries.

Each teacher will receive a $250 gift certificate at Indigo Books and Music to use for personal use or for the school they represent.

The videos will be posted as soon as possible to our youth site. They will also be available on our YouTube channel.

We were thrilled with the number and quality of submissions we received for our second competition. We’ll be launching the 2010 contest in May!

The combination of microblogging services like Twitter and location-aware social networking games on your mobile device like Foursquare is like sucking Orange Crush through a Twizzler – it’s one big party until your great-aunt’s end table is smashed.

Twitter, of course, enables its users to post short 140-character messages. Social networking games like Foursquare encourage players to post their precise location information in order to gain points – the more locations you “check in”, the more points you gain. These “check-ins” can also be automatically posted to a player’s Twitter or Facebook account.

A couple of Dutch developers have created a site called PleaseRobMe to point out the dangers of posting so much information on your whereabouts.

“Don’t get us wrong, we love the whole location-aware thing. The information is very interesting and can be used to create some pretty awesome applications….  The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home.”

The creators of PleaseRobMe point out that users could be putting others around them at risk as well. Foursquare players, for example might also be posting location information for places they frequent…like the homes of friends and family.

The site – which took developers four hours to build – is a witty little reminder to consider the possible repurcussions of what we post online.

Not that long ago, nothing was more personal than a woman’s purse. Although it’s hard to imagine what the big secret is, very few women like to reveal the contents of their purse. However, over the years, this essential woman’s accessory seems to have lost its top spot on the most personal list. What has beaten it out for first place? The cell phone. Our cell phones often contain photos, appointments, direct access to our email, revealing text messages, our contact list – and that doesn’t even include the various applications that we are downloading in greater numbers. All this information is quite a bit more sensitive than a few receipts and old lipsticks at the bottom of a purse!

Lending someone your cell phone requires careful consideration! You have to mentally go through its contents and decide whether there is anything too personal for outside eyes. Cell phones are now a sort of Diary 2.0.

The same could be said for our personal computers. So-called “family” computers – really, a box in the corner of the room — are becoming increasingly rare, being replaced by laptops, where individual ownership is more pronounced. Often, our computers are an open book on our lifestyles.

Today, the mere thought of spending a day without our cell phone or computer gives us the willies. This confirms that these devices are now a part of us; they contain all sorts of information that connect us to our families and our network of friends: they complete us as individuals. They are communication tools that we use to share our every thought, and because they are always within reach, they allow us to seize every moment. But we are also supplying these two electronic devices with personal information that becomes a public and permanent record of the moments of our life.

We are all entitled to some secrets, but storing them in a purse or cell phone makes them easily available for others to uncover. Set your own boundaries and think about the content you download. Segment access with permissions, passwords and encryption. It’s more than just a simple click; it’s your privacy.

Protecting your personal information is getting harder everyday as more and more gadgets and toys offer the option of going online. Even that new stuffed dog you got for your birthday last week may have come with a code that allows you to go online and play with other kids!

And we know you love the tools that bring you online – you go there to connect with friends and make new ones, to buy products, listen to music, watch videos, play games, learn – the list goes on and on.

Since you love technology so much we think it’s only fair that we offer you new ways to  protect your information. Today, we’ve posted a new “creative guide” to our youth site, that offers information and discussion ideas for 12 privacy issues – such as the reason you should pay attention to privacy settings; how keeping personal information private can protect you from identity theft; how to be careful on online gaming sites; what to do if your parents are your friends on Facebook (and you don’t really want them there); how to stay safe on online dating sites; and why you should avoid sexting all together!

We’re also looking for some young bloggers so send us an e-mail if you’d like to talk about some of these topics! Also, stay tuned for the winning videos of our latest youth video contest – we had some really awesome submissions!