Media Literacy Week: Protecting and empowering students in the digital age
Guest blog by Patricia Kosseim, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
Surveillance and algorithmic decision-making
Sociologist and surveillance scholar David Lyon defines surveillance as “any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered.”
What is AI?
This guide provides an overview of what AI is – and in particular Generative AI – and gives two examples of main AI tools you are likely to encounter. Then it explains some key ethical and social issues related to Generative AI.
Gone in Sixty Seconds: The Sociology of Snapchat
Snapchat, the mobile app that lets users send "self-destructing" photos, has the distinction of being the only digital tool that does not have a single redeeming feature. While the moral panic associated with blogs, cell phones, social networks and online games has largely faded in grudging recognition of their more positive uses (indeed, research shows that many parents have actually helped their children lie about their age register for Facebook accounts), Snapchat is seen as the Q-tip of the digital age: its sole function is to do the thing that you're warned not to do on the box.
Protecting Your Privacy on Commercial Apps and Websites
Almost all of kids’ favourite apps and websites make money from targeted advertising, which uses their personal information to choose which ads to show them. Many of them also sell the data they collect to data brokers, which use information from many sources to make detailed profiles of users. Some also share it with other apps that are owned by the same company, such as Google and YouTube or Instagram and Facebook.
Legislation
Internationally, a wide range of legislation has been developed in order to manage and protect individual’s personal information. Canada’s public and private sector are governed separately in terms of privacy protection.
Surveillance techniques
Thanks to the networked nature of the internet, in which information is always flowing both ways, there's no shortage of ways for apps, devices and websites to collect information about us.
Privacy impacts of advertising and marketing
It’s as important for advertisers to reach the right people as it is to make an appealing ad, so they have developed many different ways of targeting ads effectively. Online advertising lets marketers match different ads with individual users. This section looks at how that’s done and how it affects kids’ privacy.
Young people’s attitudes towards privacy
Contrary to stereotypes, youth do care about their privacy.
Techniques for literacy
"Given the opportunity, young people do care about issues relating to the harnessing and use of their information online. They want to know what information is being taken from them, and why. They want companies to be more open about how data is being used."