Tip #4: Know who your real friends are

Take a minute to think about the number of friends you have on your favorite social networking site. Would you say that, on average, you know these friends:
1) very well?
2) well?
3) somewhat?
4) not at all?

In the real world, we are generally selective about the company we keep and the personal information that we share with them. However, when using social networking sites, too many of us forget to think before we click.

Accepting a new friend means more than just a click of the mouse. If you haven’t set up different privacy settings for different lists of friends, you are giving that person access to all of your personal information.

Many of us have social media “friends” that we would more likely consider acquaintances in real life. Now, take a moment to think about the information that they can see about you. If you are revealing details about your life that could potentially be twisted or used against you – which could be details about a relationship, or even a simple expression of your feelings towards someone who turns out to be less of a friend than you thought – you really need to think about who you are allowing to view that information. For example, when you write something as simple as “off to a ski chalet for the weekend” as a status update, that may signal to a thief that there’s nobody at your home all weekend, making it an easy target.  This is an extreme case, but the same principle holds true for other, less extreme scenarios. Maybe you announce that you’re going somewhere, and someone you don’t want to see makes sure to bump into you there.  In the end, the more you share, the more information that is out there for others to use – potentially in ways that you hadn’t thought of.

We aren’t encouraging you to avoid social networking sites. We do, however, want you to be aware of the potential risks when posting information, and encourage you to take a few precautions to fully benefit from the positive aspects of these sites. This may mean taking a second thought about the information that you post online. It may mean taking another look at your privacy settings, which may have changed since you last checked them. If you are very active on your social media pages, maybe you should only let your real-life friends see your page, limit what some friends can see within your page, or limit what you post.

Go over your friend list frequently, and restrict access to friends who are no longer in your ‘inner circle.’ While you can always delete friends, it’s best to avoid going through that trouble in the first place by being careful when accepting a new friend request. Consider only giving your real friends access to content that you consider private – someone you don’t really know doesn’t need that information anyway!

Stay tuned for Tip #5: Sexting – don’t do it!

Series Introduction

Canadian teens are online more than ever before. After all, it’s a great way to stay connected with friends, play games, watch videos, and update yourself on the people and issues that you care about.

But, despite the obvious benefits, communicating online can pose numerous risks to your privacy.

Over the past few years, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has engaged young Canadians on privacy issues through presentations and discussions. While it’s true that our Office has a wealth of knowledge about privacy laws and issues, we want to know whether Canadian teens care about their privacy while online and, if so, which privacy issues they are most interested in learning and talking about.
 
So far, we’ve received great feedback. Many young Canadians have told us that they want to know more about the privacy implications of technology, so that they can make better informed decisions regarding  how to protect themselves.
 
As such, in the coming weeks, we will post a series of 12 top tips on our youth blog to help you protect your online rep. Each will provide information about the impact of online tools and practices on your privacy, and how you can take control to protect your online rep!

We’re about to launch our fourth annual My Privacy & Me Video Contest, and, if you’re between the ages of 12 and 18, we want you to show us what you think about privacy.

We’re looking for videotaped public service announcements about privacy. And not just any aspect of privacy; we want you to explore the privacy issues related to any of these four topics:

• mobile devices;
• social networking;
• online gaming; or
• cybersecurity.

You need to work alone or in pairs and your video has to be between 60 and 120 seconds long. It can be live action or animation, in French or in English. (We will subtitle all the finalist videos, so that they can be understood in both of Canada’s official languages.)

Any school may submit up to 10 different videos for the contest. If your school has more than 10 videos to submit, it’s a good idea to hold a competition within your school, so that you get to choose the 10 best videos for our contest.

The winning videos will be featured on this youthprivacy.ca website and our YouTube channel.

Oh, and there are prizes, of course! The best video for each of the four subject areas gets a $350 gift card. Second-place finishers will win a $200 gift card and third-place winners will walk away with a $100 gift card.

The deadline for entries is Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012 at noon ET. Look for more contest details here.

If you want inspiration, check out the winning videos from last year.

Then power up your camera, and let’s see what you think about privacy!

They could be. A simple photo of your new haircut could also be telling tech-savvy people exactly where you live. If you’re using a GPS-enabled smartphone or a digital camera, you could be posting photos and videos with geotags embedded in the images. Geotags are data that provide the longitude and latitude of where that photo or video was taken.

So, if the photo is taken at your house, geotags will provide information about where you live. If the photo is taken anywhere else, geotags will tell people where you were when the photo was taken. If the geotag tells people where your house is and you post a comment like “Sam is going out tonight!” people now know where you live and that you won’t be home that night – quite valuable information for any potential thieves who might be looking at your online information.

The problem with geotagged photos and videos is the location information isn’t visible to casual viewers (you have to take some steps to look for it), so you might not even realize it’s there. If you are unknowingly posting photos and videos with geotags, this could affect your privacy (if everyone now knows where you live), as well as your safety.

If you want to disable the geotagging function on your smartphone, you often have to go through several layers of menus to find the “location” setting and then select “off” or “don’t allow”. The web site ICanStalkU.com has step-by-step instructions for disabling the photo geotagging function on iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm devices.

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.”

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!

Do you have toys and gadgets on your wish list this holiday? A stuffed toy or a cell phone or camera? Chances are you do because these days these toys and gadgets are more than they used to be. Just a few years ago a stuffed animal was something to cuddle with and a phone was, well, just a phone! Now, many stuffed animals come with codes that allow you to register them online so you can play games, feed and care for them, and even chat and play with other kids. And many cell phones are phones, computers and cameras, all in one.

And while such toys and gadgets can be fun, we want you to enjoy them without putting your privacy and personal information at risk.

Here are our tips for protecting your privacy as you enjoy your new gadgets and toys:

Think before you click – The Internet is a public arena, and photos and comments you post are permanent. Even if you delete them from a web page, they could continue to exist in archived pages, in your computer’s cache or on the computers of other Internet users who may have copied them. If you don’t want certain people to see something, now or in the future, don’t post it!

Pick and protect the perfect password – Your information is only as safe as your passwords. Use different passwords for different systems; make sure they are strong (eight characters or more and a variety of letters or numbers); never share them with anybody; and change them regularly.

Know your friends – Online, you can’t be 100 per cent sure who you are talking to. Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know in real life.

Protect your identity – Identity theft is a growing problem and the Internet is the least private of spaces. Don’t post or e-mail personal details such as your social insurance number, phone number, home address or birth date.

Be careful on online gaming sites – Online gaming sites are hotbeds of people accessing personal information. Be aware that ill-intentioned people can use information from your profile to establish accounts in your name, or use your stolen identity to access your existing accounts.

Be wary of e-mail or instant messages from unknown people – Don’t open online messages that seem odd or are from someone you don’t know. They could contain a virus or let a hacker gain access to your computer.

Have a happy holiday and enjoy all your new toys!

Our Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart is worried that maybe you don’t. After conducting an investigation into Facebook’s privacy policies, we’re now turning our attention to you as the school year gets underway. Because while you may be savvy about using social media, many of you still may not know how to create a secure online identity.

If you’re listening to the radio today you may hear a message from our office that we created especially for you. In case you miss it, we’ve provided clips from it for you here. The gist of it is that many young people are still jeopardizing their safety, and possibly compromising their futures, by sharing photos and information – some of it inappropriate – with people they don’t know… people who may not be who they say they are.

You need to always be aware that the personal information that you post online could be used in a variety of shady ways, from embarrassing you, to stealing your identity – even for finding out where you live, go to school, or your plans for the weekend. Our radio message urges young people (and their parents and teachers) to regularly visit youthprivacy.ca for information on safely using the Internet and social networking sites.

The message also reminds everyone that we’re inviting all young people, between the ages of 12 and 18, to participate in our second annual video contest. Create a one- to two-minute public service announcement on the importance of privacy by Friday, December 11th and you could win some really cool prizes!

Have you ever posted personal information or pictures online without thinking about the privacy implications – and then regretted it afterwards? With the increasing popularity of social networking sites we often post without thinking twice. But what happens when you apply for a job, or try out for a competitive sports team – and realize that you’ve got pictures and comments posted online that you’d prefer to keep between you and your friends? Luckily, there are ways you can remove this information!

When it comes to removing information from social networking sites there are a few simple things you can try. (In this instance, when we say “information” we mean anything that you have posted or that someone else has posted about you – status updates, wall posts, pictures, blogs, messages.) Here is what you should do if you’re trying to remove information:

1. The obvious first step is to delete it if you can.

2. If someone else has posted information about you, kindly ask them to take it down.

3. If you can’t take the information off yourself or if someone else is refusing to take down your information, contact the website’s administrator and explain your situation. Here are links to guidelines for removing unwanted items at three popular networking sites:

Facebook
MySpace
LinkedIn

Now that we’ve covered tips on removing information from social networking sites, let’s take a look at search engines. Some of you have probably tried searching your own name on popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Here are some tips on what to do if you find something you’d like removed:

1. The first step is finding out what’s out there. This is easy – Google yourself!

2.  Does your name come up in direct correlation with any social networking site, blog or public profile? If it does, and you’d rather it didn’t, this is easy to prevent by using a pseudonym (another word for “username”) instead of  your full name as a username.

3. Contact the person in charge of the site which is displaying your information on Google. Kindly ask them to take the information off.

The best way to avoid having to do any of this is to think ahead from now on. Make sure you think before you click – don’t post anything you might not want up there a few days or even years down the road. This problem is so common that there are now companies who make a profit from people who want information taken off the web. This is because once something is online it often gets stored in so many places that it’s almost impossible to get rid of. Think twice before you post any information online and you won’t have to worry about any of this stuff in the future!

Did you know it’s Privacy Awareness Week in the Asia Pacific Region? Check out the three-minute video, featured on our YouTube channel, that the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA) launched to mark the week.

The video features a series of animated scenarios that highlight the potential consequences of posting personal information online. Would you want your grandma, your coach, your teacher to see what you’re posting online? No? Well, then you need to think before you upload!