The briefest glance through any newspaper today will almost certainly reveal at least one story about personal information being lost, stolen or misused in some way, sometimes with painful financial or personal consequences.
Our personal data is valuable and every day we will give out our personal information in some form or another – a phone number, an email address, bank details, shopping preferences – perhaps barely giving it a thought as to who we are giving this personal data to, what they will use it for, whether they will keep it safe and the fact that when online, it's there for ever.
In a survey of more than 4,000 young people carried out for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in 2011, nearly nine out of 10 (88%) secondary school respondents had a social networking site profile where they shared all manner of personal information, news and views. The survey also revealed that 60% of the young people questioned had not read the privacy policies of the networking sites they used while 32% didn't know what a privacy policy was, and 23% said they didn't know where to find it.
As the UK's independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, the ICO has worked with an experienced secondary school teacher to produce a set of free teaching materials to give teachers an introduction to information rights and provide them with a set of lesson activities to raise some of the key issues with students. We hope that as a result children and young people will become aware of the rights they have with their personal information, understand the potential threats to their privacy, and know how to protect themselves.
The project comprises a series of 10 lesson plans that sit within the citizenship, ICT and PSHE areas of the curriculum, and further lesson plans are planned to cover the commercial and entrepreneurial uses of open data – a mandatory requirement of the computing curriculum from September 2014.
The ICO's 'Your rights to your information' project aims to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding of children and young people so that they better understand their own information rights and the obligations of those who hold information about them, or of concern to them. The materials have been developed to give teachers a creative and engaging set of resources for use in the classroom, supplying the tools needed to raise awareness of key issues around information rights. The lessons explore what we mean by personal data, what we can share and what we should keep safe. Students will learn why personal data is important, how to keep it safe and what their rights are.
The materials allow teachers flexibility in their approach and encourage active learning, with many opportunities for student talk, discussion and questioning. The activities will allow teachers to support young people to become more aware of their rights and responsibilities relating to data protection and freedom of information. They will also learn where to go for help if they have a concern, and how as active citizens, they can use data protection and freedom of information for a wider social benefit.
More information or to download resources visit www.ico.org.uk/schools.
Content on this page is provided by ICO – supporter of the citizenship hub.
