Dr Jun Zhao

Activities to support young people to think about online privacy policies & what they want

Aim of these activities: Participants will have started critically unpacking some common privacy practices, reflect on whether they trust them or not, and articulate what would be their ‘ideal scenario’

Methods

Concept: Privacy in a digital age – reflecting on what would be the ideal scenario

Example activities: Post-it notes to make a privacy policy

The task for each group is to create a long list of things that actors (e.g. companies/governments/people) should do with their data, and things they shouldn’t do.

Each thing they want people to ‘do’ with their data is written on a post-it note and stuck to the do card, each thing they ‘don’t’ want people to do with their data is stuck on the don’t card.Encourage the group to list as many as they can think of.

Prompts:

  • Ask them to think about the definition of privacy we agreed on earlier. If an app did everything on their green sheet, and nothing on their red sheet, would they feel private?
  • Look at survey data if you have it, or previous research data about what other young people have said they want or don’t want to happen. Should we add those to our list too?
  • Ask someone to act out being the CEO of a fantastic new company, and someone to act out being a sceptical teenager. If the CEO said they would do everything on the green list, should the sceptical teenager trust them or are there more things they want to add?

If you have multiple ‘do and don’t’ lists, as a group try and combine and group them into a single list. This takes extra time though, and lots of discussions.

Once they’re done, explain that they have, in effect, made the best privacy policy they imagine.

Time taken: 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how much discussion you want.

Resources needed:

  1. A few prompt ‘post-it notes’ from either other countries, or existing research about what young people might want to happen with their data in the digital world.

  2. One sheet of Green poster paper marked ‘do’, and one sheet of Red poster paper marked ‘don’t’, or a white board with do and don’t headings written at the top.

  3. A whole bunch of post it-notes, and

  4. Pens

In large groups, we gave each pair a sheet of green A1 paper, a sheet of Red A1 paper to work in smaller groups.

Concept: Privacy in a digital age – reflecting on what ‘best interests’ might mean

Example activities: Compare and contrast facilitated discussion

Looking at the privacy policy the group made in the activity above, cognizant of their definition of privacy, compare it to the plain speak Instagram policy on page 10.

Open up a discussion among the group:

  • Which policy is better, the one they created on post-it notes or Instagrams?
  • Better for who?
  • Who “wins” from each policy?
  • Does one seem to put children’s best interests first???

If you have time, you could ask the group to summarise their discussion by asking them to develop 5 bullet points about what a privacy policy looks like where “young people win” (or “their best interests are put first” if that language resonates).

Time taken: 25-45 minutes, depending on how chatty the group is.

Resources needed: Print outs of the plain speak Instagram policy (here on page 10), enough for one between two. You will need to explain that Instagram’s policies have been updated since, but this gives a broad overview of what they are. You will need a note taker for this session, to capture reflections.

Concept: Privacy in a digital age – reflecting on what might make young people trust their privacy is protected

Example activities: Speech writing activity, would this be convincing?

The idea here is to unpack if a commitment to designing in children’s best interests, alongside specific standards, would help young people trust the digital world more.

Ask for one volunteer to come up front and ‘act’. They are now acting as the CEO of a tech company (or Mark Zackerberg if they want to be him).

Here’s the scenario. This CEO is facing a grumpy group of young people, who are worried about their privacy. Remind them of key points from the discussion, and if you have it data from the poll (e.g. one third of young people don’t trust tech). Explain that this is what the grumpy group feels.

Tell the group that our role in this activity is to help this tech CEO write a 5 minute speech to address the young people’s concerns. In this speech they have to convince the audience of grumpy young people that they are going to do the best things possible for their privacy. Write and re-write the speech until they are happy that they have something that, on the balance of probability, would convince young people to trust the CEO.

Prompts to help them write the speech:

  • They could start with the list of does and don’ts, or they could add more
  • What else should they say they will or won’t do?
  • You can add in activities like ‘raise your hand in the air, all the way if you’d be convinced yet, half way if your partly convinced or put it down towards the floor if you don’t believe them at all yet’, to temperature test the group along the way. Ask those young people who say they aren’t convinced yet, what else that they should add to the speech to help get them there.

Time taken: 30 - 45 minutes

Resources needed: If you’ve got it, a giant shirt and a tie help. The young person who volunteers to play a tech CEO can put them on to get in character. (Or if you want, a giant hoodie and explain that a lot of tech CEOs wear hoodies).

If you’ve got a white board to help, write the speech on that helps; or a blank slide on a deck, so you can type what they say and project it at the same time. The moderator or a young person will need to volunteer to write up the speech as the group is drafting it.

In large groups, you could break it down and ask young people to write and deliver speeches in pairs or small groups.