What is Privacy?

Next, display or distribute page four and read “What is Privacy Anyway?” from the booklet to the class.

As a knowledge check, ask students:

• Has your idea of what the word “privacy” means changed after reading this?
  • Confirm that they understand the idea of controlling what personal information is collected, used or shared, as well as controlling which audiences have access to it.
• Why or why not?
  • Were they familiar with the concept of “personal information”? Do they feel they understand what it means?
• If so, how?
  • What other meanings of “privacy” did students have? How were they similar or different?

Return to the idea of personal information and explain that it means information that could be connected to you, or used to identify you.

List or write the following examples of personal information:

• Your name
• Your birthday
• Your fingerprints
• Your phone number (or your parents’)
• Your email address

Remind students of the list of internet-connected devices from the previous step. What kind of personal information connected to you might they collect?

For instance, if you send an email on a computer or tablet, the device — or the apps on it — might record your email address; if you have fingerprint access enabled on a tablet or phone, it will record your fingerprints to make it work.