The Illusion of Privacy

How many grooves are there on the edge of a quarter?

One hundred and nineteen.

The Internet allows users to research topics and connect with others in a way that has never been possible before. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and that’s where privacy comes into the equation. The world is experiencing a social revolution. Technology has ushered in a new era of connectivity where pushing a button teaches you something new.

The State of the Internet

With 1.15 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. Every 60 seconds, 510 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are shared.

On December 5th, more than two million of its users’ passwords were stolen by online hackers.

Many think online privacy is an illusion. A ruse. A phase.

“It is not the path of least resistance but it is possible,” said Paul Green, a self-employed Internet and communications privacy consultant. “The key thing to be aware of is that you need some information to be public and some to be private and act accordingly.”

Names and birthdays are public information obtainable from a variety of sources, but more specific information such as addresses and location check-ins should remain private.

A recent study by Northeastern’s College of Computer and Information Science found that given the known attributes of some fraction of users in an online social network, the personal details — geographic location, interests, and schools attended — of the remaining users could be discovered with minimal effort.

So why does this affect teenagers? With a few clicks on a mouse, anyone can connect the dots between a person and their school, their friends, their family, and in a surprising amount of cases, their address.

Young adults tend to broadcast their lives on social media for others to see, and this can lead to major issues.

“There is a tendency to think only of the immediate excitement,” Green said. “But there can be consequences down the road if you treat private information as if it were public.”

These consequences can extend outside of just the Internet. Decisions made on social media accounts can have a major impact on the professional lives of their owners. Recently, many employers began to ask for Facebook passwords during job applications, and many people simply cannot afford to say no.

The use of social media has many benefits, however.

“I think that provided some basic precautions are taken and provided you don’t say, display, or do things that a good parent would not want out in public – then social media is a great way to stay in touch,” Green said. “Although it’s no replacement for social gatherings of course.”

Why Privacy Hinders Danger

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, ninety-one percent of teens have a photograph of themselves linked to a personal online social media profile. Fourteen percent of these teens also have all of their contact information available to the public. Most users of social media have heard warnings about staying safe online.

Unfortunately, many suggestions for safeguarding privacy seem a little extreme and can seem alarmist and preachy. However, some of these suggestions offer important online steps to protecting one’s privacy in order to keep oneself as anonymous as possible.

Tara Pachecho is a paralegal in the Child Sex Offender Internet Investigations division of the District Attorney’s Office of Jefferson County, Colorado.

Dealing with sex offender cases from elementary school through high school, Pachecho works with Officer Mike Harris, who has personally made an appearance at a Regis Jesuit High School assembly. Pachecho and Harris stress the importance of staying conservative with information online, even for high schoolers. Listing a city, school, or even a state is not necessary for having a Facebook account and can only hinder one’s privacy.

“Any time you are giving out your full and real name, it can be dangerous,” Pachecho said.

Interestingly, despite a heightened awareness about the wisdom of using a pseudonym online, YouTube has recently undergone major changes in its merge with Google Plus that compromise privacy.

Unlike the past, where usernames could be created for a profile in order to make an account and comment, YouTube now requires all users to establish a Google Plus profile, asking for a full name and picture. This nullifies any anonymity that was once available when posting comments or videos. A protest erupted from users everywhere complaining about this new system, but it seems that Google is committed to promoting their own social network.

Google Plus has been dwarfed by Facebook and Twitter, but by embedding their social network in YouTube, Google links Google Plus with a site that has over one billion unique visitors every month.

Google started integrating user names into YouTube and (for lack of a better word) harassed users into linking their real names with their YouTube profile. There was no option to stop the onslaught of real name requests. Instead, after dismissing the request to link a real name with an account, YouTube prompted the user with a green message box saying, “Okay, we’ll ask you again later!”

This poses a possibility for more conflict with minors on the internet, as many companies like Disney will post YouTube videos for young children to enjoy while using the internet. Potential predators will know that these videos from Disney have a target demographic for children, and when the comments show the real name of the poster, it only makes it easier for predators to receive information on a child.

Issues On Campus

All of the changes that have been occurring on the outside world, concerning social media, and a more active online population, have in many ways impacted Regis Jesuit High School. As the student body has become more and more active online, there has also been a consistent trend in what the school considers inappropriate use of social media and the internet.

According to Mike Doherty, Dean of Students in the Boys Division, there is at least one case of such use every month, for the last ten of fifteen years.

“Most times they’re less serious. Sometimes they’re serious enough that they could affect a student’s enrollment here,” Doherty said.

But what defines inappropriate use? Anything that goes against the values of Regis Jesuit High School can be thought of as such.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in class, or sitting in your basement, it’s the values of the school that we expect are being carried out all the time. And that’s how you conduct yourself, whether you’re in a conversation, or you’re on social media,” Doherty said. “If you’re posting inappropriate things on Facebook, anything that would degrade another person, or be dangerous to another person.”

Most of the time, it is actually with student help that these sort of guidelines are made.

“Like with everything else at Regis, the barometer is the student body,” Doherty said. “We find out about the culture of the school based on the students in the school, because their standard for Regis Jesuit High School is higher than anything you could put in print.”

“When a student is doing something that is inappropriate, you can almost bet that there’s going to be someone who calls them out on it,” Doherty continued, “If they can deal with it themselves, they do. And if it’s something that’s actually bringing discredit to the school, or harming an individual, and I don’t mean physically harming them necessarily, but harming their status, then they bring it to other people who can then deal with it in an appropriate manner.”

There has yet to be a case of expulsion due exclusively to something relating to inappropriate Internet or social media use. But many individuals have been suspended due to mistakes made online.

Doherty says the best thing students can do to stay responsible online is to actively think about what is being posted or said.

“Think about at all times, ‘before I hit this “send” button, before I shoot this off,’ think about if this is going to be an appropriate post, is this going to be an appropriate thought that I put out there. And generally most times if you have to really think about it, you’ve probably answered your question, and it’s probably not appropriate.”