Next time you feel uncomfortable handing over your personal information for something as simple as buying a pair of shoes, ask the company why they need it. They should be able to tell you why they need the information, how they will be using it and how they will protect it. If you are dissatisfied with the answer they provide you can decline to provide it and you should still be able to complete the transaction. The law states that a business may only collect personal information about you that is essential to the business transaction. For example, if you are having a purchase delivered, you would need to provide your full address and possibly your name. If further information is requested, you have a right to ask why and to decline to provide it if you are dissatisfied with the answer.

Things become much less clear once you start using the Internet. The Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has created a voluntary privacy code that every website is encouraged to adhere to. Although there is no face-to-face interaction, when you are online you still have a right to know how an organization is using your personal information. Answers to these questions should be covered in a site’s privacy policy. It is always a good idea to review a company’s privacy policy, especially if you don’t feel comfortable with the information they are asking for. A typical privacy policy might cover the following elements:

• What type of personal information the organization collects about you
• How your personal information is used and shared with third parties
• How the organization obtains your consent and how you can opt out
• How your personal information is safeguarded
• How you can update your personal information
• How you can contact the organization with your privacy concerns

You might wonder why it’s important to know what organizations are doing with your personal information. It’s simple: once you learn the reasons, you may be uncomfortable with what they’re doing with it. Some companies may sell your information to third parties, use it to send you junk mail, send you unwanted promotional materials or sign you up for contests and subscriptions. The list goes on! An organization can use your information for whatever purposes they feel are useful as long as you have provided them with the information and they have listed those purposes in their privacy policy. It’s up to you to read that policy or ask questions.

So be aware of your rights and you can better protect your privacy, both online and in the real world. You always have a right to know!

“….This doesn’t feel like a social networking site either. It just has that “governmental” feel. Everything seems too non-spontaneous (comments need to be approved before passing through, we can’t actually post blogs and whatnot unless we forward them through the site admins which, ironically, is really bad for privacy)

Posting on this site feels like more work than it should be… it’s not fun (the base of the problem). I sure don’t like feeling like a social experiment, yet I offer up these comments in hopes that you’ll read them, listen to them, and make changes so this website is appealing to youth.”

We’ve heard from you: this site needs to be more responsive and more entertaining. You’d like to see more interactive stuff like quizzes and videos and games – and we’re figuring out what we can get done.

You also want to see your comments be posted more quickly, and want to be able to post blog entries directly to the blog.

Unfortunately, there will be a delay when you want to post a comment on this blog, and we do have to review your posts before they make it to the blog page.

Can you give us a little bit of a break? Youthprivacy.ca is, after all, a government web site trying to do something unusual.  Look around. Are there other government web sites that want you to write things for them – and will publish them?

We genuinely want to encourage conversation on this blog, but we have to ensure that we don’t publish things that are offensive, rude or abusive.

Honestly, we approve comments as quickly as possible.

As for blog posts, we’re still trying to figure out how best to manage this. We want you to write your own posts but, just as we do in the office, they will have to be reviewed by staff before they go live as well.

If others of you have ideas for this blog, or if you’d like to blog for us, we’re listening.

We will post a new entry at least every week, or as often as we have new things to say. We hope to hear from you as well. If you use the Internet a lot and use social networking sites you should stay tuned for some information that you won’t want to miss!

In the meantime, here are some things to think about. We plan to talk about them in some of our future posts:

• Do you ever stop to think about the things you are putting online and how they might be permanent? Is there anything you would want to remove from the social networking sites, especially before a college, university or potential employer did an Internet search on you?
• Do you understand your privacy rights and why they are so important?
• Do you ever feel like your parents are paranoid about your online behaviour?
• Do you ever accept people you don’t know as “friends” on social networking sites?
• Did you ever stop to think about how your personal safety offline could be affected by what you tell people online?

Well, here’s how you can tell us!

It’s easy! Just click on the “comment” or “new post” button at the bottom of each post. Here, you will be asked to submit your name and e-mail address (this won’t be published online, it’s simply to enable us to get in touch with you) and you will see a box where you can type your comment or post. Then click on the “submit comment/post” button and we will receive it as an e-mail. Once we read it to make sure it’s appropriate (rude or offensive language won’t be accepted) then we’ll post it. We look forward to hearing from you!