Dr Jun Zhao

Activities to support young people to think about data footprints & privacy

Aim of these activities: Participants have critically thought about the nature and scale of their digital footprint, and what privacy means to them against this datafied backdrop.

Methods

Concept: Privacy in a digital age – understanding the potential size of your data footprint

Example activities: Quickfire footprint warm up

Ask young people to holla out all the sorts of personal information about them that might be known online that they can think of.

You might need to start off with some prompts, like “online, is your date of birth anywhere” etc.

Each time someone says something, colour in one part of the foot. The aim is to colour in the foot, and get as creative as you can about the answers.

Prompt young people as they are going: “what about your name, what about your face, bank details, where you are, what about your eye colour – do you reckon online people might know that”, etc.

If you’ve got some sort of ‘prize’ for everyone who says something it helps; also, it sets a culture of “say anything and everything”. The more free flowing and expansive the answers become, the easier the conversation about online privacy becomes later. In terms of adding this to the ‘giant foot’, be creative if you get more answers than segments. We ended our foot by drawing toenails, or drawing an ankle and a leg. Keep it fun.

Discussion points for the end:

  • Is this a lot of data? Does it worry anyone?
  • Would we want everyone to be able to see this information?
  • How much data do we think advertisers hold about us, by the time we turn 12? Take a guess, explain that others have guessed it’s 72 million data points etc

Time taken:

Between 10 min if you want to keep it fast, to 30 minutes, if you want depth. Keep in mind, at 30 minutes it might feel quite long and boring, so make sure you’ve got prizes, prompts or have set a fun ambitious target for the group to meet, ready to keep the group going.

Resources needed:

Use a drawing of a foot on a white board, or a piece of poster paper with the outline of a foot drawn on it, or a slide deck with a giant foot outline.

The foot needs to be divided into between 5 and 20 segments, to colour in everytime a young person offers an answer.

Concept: Privacy in a digital age – understanding the potential exposure of your data footprint

Example activities: Magic 4s/8s

Fold a piece of paper in half, then half it again so you’ve got 4 squares on your page, or 8 if you’ve got more time. These are your magic 4 or 8 squares to help us get creative.

Set a fast-paced time limit and ask “in 3 minutes, fill in a square for everyone you can think of who sees your data footprint online?”

As they’re working, or afterwards, feel free to give the group some prompts, if you feel like they are drying up on ideas. For example, “has anyone said their friends could see it?” “What about Google?” “Did anyone say their family could see it?” etc.

Once time is up, ask the young people to hold up all the pieces of paper they have in their hands and wave them, like a big fan. You can ask people to read some of their suggestions to flesh out the idea that a lot of different actors have access to your data footprint.

If you’ve got to move fast and have no time for discussion, you could end with a “Whoa, look around at all the people who can see your data online waving around. I can feel the breeze from here! That’s a lot of people who can see your data footprint” type comment.

Discussion prompts:

  • Who do we want to see all our data? Did anyone have people they did want to see their data, or people they did not want to see their data?
  • What do we feel about this?
  • Does it feel right or wrong? Or both?
  • Who would you want to see all your data, if you could pick?

Time taken: Between 10 min if you want to keep it fast, to 30 minutes if you want depth. At 30 minutes, you’ll need lots of prompts and discussion points

Resources needed:

  • A piece of paper per young person—coloured paper always makes this activity feel slightly less boring, and some pens for them to write with.
  • We always go with new, coloured Sharpies. Nothing screams “we’re not really interested in what you have to say and we don’t really think you’re important” than turning up with a packet of half dead pens and broken pencils. This is about setting the tone for the session, and showing the young people that you respect their input as much as you would with an elite level interviewees.
  • We had novelty buzzers to press at the end of 3 minutes, which gave it a fun-game show type vibe too.

Concept: Privacy in a digital age – understanding what privacy means to the group, in an online world

Example activities: Creating a definition of privacy

The moderator needs to introduce the idea that we all have the right to privacy online. It might not be a right that is enjoyed, but young people have this right stemming from the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

As a group, we want to unpack what privacy might mean, by writing one sentence.

Pull out a piece of poster paper/white board and work together to fill it in. Start with the prompt: Digital privacy (noun): Means when young people …

If you have a large group, you can break into pairs to do this first, by asking each pair to develop a definition of privacy and then share their definition to the whole group. A whole group definition can then be agreed, by combining all the “elements” or best sentences from all the pairs etc.

In our project, we ended this section by explaining that this was an issue that a lot of young people cared about, and were able to share some survey data we had done with the group.

Time taken: 10-30 minutes

Resources needed: A piece of poster paper, a whiteboard, or a slide with the text: Online privacy (noun): Means when young people … written on it. For a large group, multiple papers, board space, or A4 paper to write initial small groups’ definitions on might be needed. A large group will also need pens.