This week we reviewed privacy and digital citizenship, particularly the digital footprint, an ever important topic. Digital citizenship covers the responsible and safe use of technology and how to behave online. A digital footprint is the permanent trail someone leaves on the internet through all their activities.
We looked at different ways the digital footprint can be used by companies like data brokers
Firstly, browser fingerprinting is a method in which companies use meta-data like, battery percentage, timezone and hardware specs, etc., to create a profile that can be used for targeted ads. Next, Data brokers can use information available on social media and other websites to buy and sell data to advertisers. Lastly, lookalike models, which create a “web” of social connections and track what friends and people you spend time with are doing on the internet. From this information, companies produce targeted ads.
While this is slightly disturbing to think about, there are ways we can stop these targeted ads and data brokers. Using ad blockers, adjusting privacy settings and request data releases from data brokers are just a few ways to combat this issue.
In regards to how this applies to education, it is important to think about the activities our students are doing and how they might affect their lives outside of schools. Being able to model good online privacy practices and teach digital citizenship are skills that we must be able to carry into our careers.