a great blue hero flying off against a bright blue ski
“Great Blue Heron in Flight” by Heidi Grant is licensed under CC BY 4.0

It was great to learn more about privacy and how to keep ourselves and our students safe as we venture into the world of tech.

one of the resources that really resonated with me was https://tosdr.org/. I thought this website was super helpful in deciphering the legalese of privacy policies and I am looking forward to using it in the future.

I also took the time to take a preliminary look at the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. There is lots in it and it will be a good resource!

The main takeaways I got were:

  1. Personal information belongs to the individual and can’t be used without consent.
  2. Consent can be obtained for minors from their families. The school districts collect consent forms.
  3. Consent needs to be informed- therefore any new technology/app/website that collects personal information needs to receive a privacy assessment to ensure it is low risk and families must be informed.
  4. If a family does not consent to a student using a certain technology, an alternative must be provided.

Students need to be taught about personal information, their right to it and how it can be used online. Safety and informed consent need to be taught, and the school system has a duty to do this (i.e. it’s in the BC curriculum).

A list of resources to teach kids about internet safety and privacy:

Privacy Education for Kids by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Information Security Awareness by the BC Government

MediaSmarts: Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy

Please let me know if you have any other resources you would recommend.