Young Canadians Speak Out: A Qualitative Research Report on Privacy and Consent
Informed Youth Promote Clarity for All
It’s something we’ve all done before: scrolled past a wall of text to click “I Agree” with no idea what we’ve agreed to. Then, when we’re using the platform, messages like “We’ve made some changes to our Terms and Conditions” simply remind us that we probably didn’t read them in the first place. Our world is becoming more and more influenced by the data that’s being collected about us. For young people in particular, this can lead to serious and unexpected consequences that could affect their entire lives.
Privacy Rights of Children and Teens
In this lesson, students are introduced to the privacy principles that inform the Alberta and BC Personal Information Protection Acts, Québec’s An Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector and the students’ federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) relating to personal information collection online. They learn ways to find out what personal information may or has been collected by platforms that they use, how to limit data collection about themselves, and the various forms of recourse that are available to them if they feel an organization is not respecting their rights.
The Privacy Dilemma
In this lesson students learn the ways that the apps they use are designed to encourage them to share more information—both with other users and with the apps themselves. They are then introduced to the idea of persuasive design or “dark patterns” and investigate whether these are used to make it more difficult to opt out of data collection on popular apps. Finally, the class creates a “rogues’ gallery” to help them identify dark patterns when they encounter them.