Youth Privacy Online: Take Control, Make It Your Choice

It's been noted more than once that for young people, the Internet is an essentially social environment: besides activities such as social networking, other popular online pastimes such as multiplayer games and even file-sharing all have social components. With all the information youth are sharing online comes concerns about online privacy – and concerns, among parents and educators, about how little concern youth often have about their privacy.

It's been noted more than once that for young people, the Internet is an essentially social environment: besides activities such as social networking, other popular online pastimes such as multiplayer games and even file-sharing all have social components. With all the information youth are sharing online comes concerns about online privacy – and concerns, among parents and educators, about how little concern youth often have about their privacy.

Youth Privacy Online: Take Control, Make It Your Choice is a conference presented by the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario, to be held in Toronto on September 4th, 2008. The conference, of which Media Awareness Network is a supporter, is aimed at anyone who is concerned about online privacy issues: educators and school board staff, youth counsellors, lawyers specializing in youth or information technology areas, concerned parents and anyone else who would like to help youth protect their privacy online.

A growing amount of evidence suggests that young people are simply not aware of the privacy issues that they face while online, with consequences that may range from jeopardizing future job prospects to being targets of cyber bullying (making private information public is one of the most common forms of cyber bullying). Youth Privacy Online: Take Control, Make It Your Choice will provide an opportunity to learn and share concerns and approaches to educating youth about privacy issues and helping them to take charge of their own privacy.

Speakers such as Ontario Minister of Education the Honourable Kathleen Wynne and Doctor Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario, will shed light on the government response to the issue. The IT industry will be represented by speakers including Bruce Cowper, Chief Security Officer for Microsoft Canada and Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook. The academic side is well-represented as well, with presenters including Doctor Valerie Steeves, of the Department of Criminology and Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and Doctor Faye Mishna, Associate Dean of Research at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. (A full list of presenters, with a brief biography of each, is available at http://www.verney.ca/ypo2008/speakers.php.)

For more information about the conference agenda, visit their home page at http://www.verney.ca/ypo2008/agenda.php. To register call (613) 226-8317 or visit the Web site at http://www.verney.ca/ypo2008/registration/ypo2008.php.