Last year, IT security firm Sophos ran an experiment on Facebook to demonstrate just how willing people were to hand over their information to potential ID thieves. They created a fake profile page on Facebook for a small green plastic frog and sent out 200 friend requests to other Facebook users. Eighty-two of those people responded, and in doing so, divulged personal information like their email address, birthdate, workplace or school location, and phone number – all useful details for the aspiring identity thief.
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We’ve blogged here before about the burgeoning data portability movement. The appealing aspect of data portability is that it would make it easy for us to essentially copy and paste our personal information from one place into a new place.
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Increasingly, we are putting our personal information online in order to gain access to the benefits of Web 2.0: We list and rank our favourite books on vendor sites, and in return we get recommendations for books we might never have heard of otherwise. We indicate which high school we attended on our Facebook profiles, and in return we reconnect with long-lost friends.
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The Pew Internet & American Life Project released its report on Teens and Social Media last month, which found that an overwhelming majority of American teens are using the Internet for social interaction – namely, sharing creations likes photos and videos, telling stories, and interacting with others.
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As part of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s outreach effort, we are exploring other vehicles for communicating important privacy issues. We have already begun this blog, are experimenting with videos on YouTube and Google Video, and now have finished a Flash presentation.
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On the second day of our conference, Professor Valerie Steeves spoke about how children interact with popular sites like Webkinz, Neopets and Barbie Girls. We have already provided a brief summary of her presentation and her fellow speakers on the subject, but thought you would like to see her speech. The presentation deck she used for her speech, and to which she refers, is also available online.
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Chatting, texting, blogging and spending time on sites like Facebook and Myspace are part of everyday life for millions of students.
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