Colleagues,
You may have heard about or followed the Congressional Hearing this week with Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, about privacy of personal information. One of the themes of questioning by U.S. Senators yesterday was how Facebook plans to make make its privacy of user information policy more understandable, and how it plans to make its tools for assuring one's privacy of information easier to understand and use.
I wonder if anyone here has addressed with their students the issue of managing privacy of information while online, not only using Facebook, but other apps and platforms such as WhatsAPP, Google, and others. If so, what have you learned about the challenges or barriers students face, or about whether they care about these privacy issues? As a teacher or program administrator have you found or created curricula or teaching materials to address the issue of online privacy? Have you found materials that are particularly suitable to adult basic skills (including ESL/ESOL) learners?
David J. Rosen, Moderator
LINCS CoP Integrating Technology and Program Management groups
Comments
Hi David and Friends,
This is a timely post! Thanks for getting the conversation started. I think the issue is broader than protecting online privacy as we are now hearing terms like data currency becoming a common part of our language. As many individuals are now learning, the 'free' Internet is not free. We are paying with it for our data. This data mining is becoming a very sophisticated part of our daily life. Is privacy something we willingly give up so we can be online? And is the question really about how we manage our privacy or what are we willing to accept for the benefit of being online?
In the 21st century, do we really have privacy? Do you carry a Smart Phone? Have you ever heard of Geo-Fencing? Marketing companies use global positioning to identify a targeted location and anyone with a smart phone in that area has their IP address gathered and then targeted for specific marketing. Geo-targeting is also used. This refers to delivering ads to people meeting a specific targeting criteria and who enter or reside inside of a defined radius using the same geo-fencing location technology. The key difference is geo-targeting hones in on specific consumer targeting criteria like demographics, behaviors, interests, as well as where the person is located. Once you understand that you have been specifically targeted, it makes you notice the advertisements a bit unsettling.
So, what does online privacy look like in the 21st century? Our data has a financial value to others, but what does that mean for us?
I look forward to the conversation.
Kathy Tracey
@Kathy_Tracey
Very timely question, David!
I would love to hear what adult learners think about this issue, and how this may be addressed in the classroom! Personally, I never read the privacy policies (who does, right?) and I think it would be a big challenge to try to sort through the real language in a classroom. But what could really help is a "cheat sheet" or summary of main points that teachers could share with students. (I could use this as well! Who couldn't?!)
This is what they do sometimes in the health field for things like consent forms. The legal team rarely lets an organization simplify the language enough for most people to understand, but you can add a simplified summary to the gibberish. This way, people can get the basic points and the legal team stays happy.
Has anyone found something like this for things like the Facebook privacy policy? And, as David asked, has anyone explored this issue in the classroom to see what learners think?
Best, Julie