Digital Literacy & Tech Privacy
- Charles Shewell
- Jul 18, 2022
- 2 min read
A Critical Look at Digital Literacy's Role in Privacy
Digital literacy and technology privacy may not seem to go hand in hand with each other, but from an individual's perspective, you cannot have security without literacy. Globally, education has a technology security issue that stems from institutional networks to educational systems to user level networks where students are using cloud based services and a variety of online educational tools. As digital literacy skills become part of the everyday learning experience creating more informed and productive citizens, the importance of information security rises as students are disclosing information to more and more technology systems.
Part of digital literacy is understanding the importance of the protection of your personal data. Students are gradually producing increased amounts of data, oftentimes through the technologies used in the classroom that require some data be shared in order to be used. Educational leaders must spend time increasing awareness for privacy of informational data to hopefully decrease possibilities of cyber attacks, hacking, and people falling prey to phishing scams. Part of becoming digitally literate is knowing how to prevent your personal information from getting out, such as the use of strong passwords. Students must be able to differentiate between legitimate and reliable sites in order to distinguish between safe and unsafe information, ultimately preventing the sharing of personal data with fake accounts or sites.
From a school’s perspective, there must be strong multi-layered security services to prevent data falling into the wrong hands. State agencies and schools must stay up to date with the latest technologies and trends in an ever evolving technological world, allowing for professional development and training opportunities for employees handling data inventories. Educational systems have a need to identify sensitive information within their records organized in a way that helps determine the level of security needed. Educational leaders with access to data and information should follow policies set by state agencies and be held accountable in order to maintain a standard.
All users, whether consciously or subconsciously, submit data when we use social media, search engines, or storage drives. Ultimately, understanding this through digital literacy and what information we share will help prevent personal data from falling into the wrong hands. What I am left asking myself is have state agencies created policies stating what information can and cannot be shared between educational systems and vendors used by schools? If so, are students and parents made aware of what information is being shared, and do the people have a say in it?
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