Initiative to protect youth in the FB age

By Deanna Harris

The Privacy Commissioner has launched a kit to help young New Zealanders protect and control their digital identities in the Facebook age.

Marie Shroff says students understand that privacy is an issue when putting personal information onto social media sites but there is almost no information to help students protect themselves.

“Young people are using Facebook and Twitter all the time. They’re putting a lot of personal information out there and online,” says Ms Shroff.

“Faced with the challenges of living in today’s digital world, we wanted to find out what young people’s take on privacy was. So, we got together a group of secondary school students to find out. From the beginning it was clear that these young people do care about privacy.”

Yesterday Labour MP Luamanuvao Winnie Laban launched an educational kit about privacy made by the group of young people for other students, at Mana College, Porirua.

“We were aware that there wasn’t a lot available for young people to help them protect and control their digital identities. Our overseas partners had produced some good things, but we were keen to know what young New Zealanders wanted to see – and indeed what they thought about privacy,” said Ms Shroff.

The kits have already got students thinking about what information they are putting out there.

“There are so many organisations that have your personal details – I hadn’t really thought about it before – but you need to know what they’re going to do with your information and you want to keep track of it. If you’re having any hassles, you need to know your rights and who can help you,” said student, Kelly Parker.

Ms Shroff says she knows many stories about young people who have had their personal information end up in the hands of those who were not meant to access it.

“We’d heard the many stories about young people putting photos and personal information online only to find later that these things had been seen by people they didn’t expect - whether it was parents, people who weren’t ‘real’ friends, employers and sometimes scammers,” she says.

Based on the three ideas of awareness, consent and appropriate use of information, the students developed the kit for schools. They came up with concepts for a poster and a brochure and made a short film.