Keeping+your+information+private

2/22/08 Megan found this website: http://safekids.com/your-familys-privacy/ Protecting Your Family’s Privacy by Lawrence J. Magid Privacy and safety go hand in hand and many of the same rules that help keep kids safe in cyberspace can also help to protect their privacy. Privacy doesn’t just mean keeping your kids names, addresses and phone numbers out of the hands of criminals. As a parent (or as a child or teen) you also have the right to protect your child’s privacy from anyone including companies that might want to sell them something. It’s real problem. A study by the Federal Trade Commission revealed that “only 14 percent of the sample (674) reflecting all U.S. commercial web sites provide any notice of their information collection practices. Only two percent — provide a comprehensive privacy policy. The survey found that “Eighty-nine percent of the 212 children’s sites surveyed collect personally identifiable information directly from children; only 54 percent of the children’s sites disclose their information collection practices.” Finally, the FTC found that “fewer than 10 percent of the sites directed to children provide for some form of parental control over the collection of information from their kids.” The good news is that many of the major players in the industry do have privacy policies and a growing number of web sites have responded to the FTC’s report by adopting privacy policies of their own. When you or your children visit a site look for the privacy policy and do not provide any personally identifiable information until you read it. The FTC makes the following recommendations: •	Don’t give out your account password to anyone, even someone claiming to be from your online service. Your account can be hijacked, and you can find unexpected charges on your bill. •	People aren’t always who they seem to be in Cyberspace. Be careful about giving out your credit card number. The same applies to your Social Security number, phone number and home address. •	Be aware that when you enter a chat room, others can know you are there and can even e-mail you once you start chatting. To remain anonymous, you may want to use a nickname for your screen name. •	E-mail is relatively private — but not completely. Don’t put anything into an electronic message that you wouldn’t want to see posted on a neighborhood bulletin board. •	Check your online service for ways to reduce unsolicited commercial e-mail. Learn to recognize junk e-mail, and delete it. Don’t even read it first. Never download an e-mail attachment from an unknown source. Opening a file could expose your system to a virus. •	You can be defrauded online. If an offer is too hard to believe, don’t believe it. •	Credit rights and other consumer protection laws apply to Internet transactions. If you have a problem, tell a law enforcement agency. •	Teach your children to check with you before giving out personal — or family — information and to look for privacy policies when they enter a web site that asks for information about them. Many kids’ sites now insist on a parent’s approval before they gather information from a child. Still, some openly admit they will use the information any way they please.

Keeley found this website. Theres even a safe song to go with it!  http://www.safekids.com/

[|(back to top)]**
 * The SafeKids Online Song

Now listen kids when you click on the web and you're surfin' for somethin' to do; chattin' in a Chattanooga chat room with a man named "Mr. Kazoo"; well, don't give out your name and number or your address too! It ain't safe to give it out, if you ain't got a clue.

Now, I'm not sayin' that strangers are bad or that you can't make friends, I'm just sayin' it's smart to keep it safe when your parents aren't watchin'... (so) don't give out your name and number or your address too! It ain't safe to give it out if you ain't got a clue.

(spoken): "That's right, Kids! You don't want to give out private information on the Internet. You don't want to give out your phone number, the name of your school, your address, your password...and certainly not your parents credit card numbers! Oh no! That's just between you and your parents!"

Now there's good stuff on the Internet, but some things might make you upset: a picture or a word that's bad...just tell your teacher, mom or dad! If you feel uncomfortable, just tell your parents now, then they will help you decide what to choose and how.

Now most folks on the Internet are nice to everyone, but some are mean like bullies who act nasty just for fun! So, don't take it hard if someone says something real mean, just say "good-bye", click-away, and keep your own nose clean.

It's cool to be a good citizen of the world and when you go Online, you can tell jokes and read a funny story, but just keep this in mind: All those other clickers on the other side, it's true, are human beings with hopes and dreams and feelings just like you.

Now if you're Online and you can't remember what to do, just click-on "The SafeKids Online Song" and it will get you through. You can still have lots of fun and be a safe kid too, just be polite and keep your private info. safe with you... you can still have lots of fun and be a safe kid too, just be polite and keep your private info. safe with you.

Blank found this website.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7668788/

Marcy's 13-year-old daughter has a knack for switching computer screens or shutting the laptop when mom walks in the room. Like in many families, the two often argue about whether mom has the right to see what her daughter is doing online. The conversation is never really resolved. But a few months ago, Marcy's need to keep up with her daughter's Internet travels took on a new urgency when she found an unfinished message on the screen urging a friend to check out her daughter's picture on a special Web page her daughter had set up. With that, Marcy made a discovery thousands of parents around the country are making -- teenagers are among the most active Internet bloggers, and many are posting pictures, names, addresses, schools, even phone numbers, almost always without their parent's knowledge.

It blew me away," said Marcy, who requested her full name not be used. "And I just lost it. I sat my daughter down and said, 'Do you realize how inappropriate and how dangerous this is? Here's your face. Here's the town you come from. Do you realize how many sick people are out there?' "

To see her daughter's site, Marcy had to sign up with a service named MySpace.com. When she did, she found her daughter's page, personal information, and pictures. But she also found a list of her daughter's friends, and made another discovery -- almost all of her 8th-grade classmates at George Washington Middle School in suburban Ridgewood, N.J. had pages on MySpace. "And their pictures are very provocative," Marcy said. "There's shots with their butt in the air, with their thongs sticking out of it. They squeeze their elbows together to make their boobs look bigger." One-third of students have blogs Soon after, Marcy went to the middle school and talked with its technology coordinator, Mary Ellen Handy, who volunteers with [|WiredSafety.org]. Handy discovered that about one-third of her 250 students have Internet blogs -- and only about 5 percent of the parents know about it. "The girls are all made up to look seductive....Parents have no clue this is going on," she said. "You think your kid is safe because they are in your house in their own bedroom. Who can hurt them when you are guarding the front door? But (the Internet) is a bigger opening than the front door." Blogs and their technology cousins, social networking sites, are all the rage among young Internet users. About half of all blogs are authored by teenagers, according to a 2003 study by Perseus Development Corp.; and according to comScore Media Metrix, a majority of the top 15 sites visited by teens 17 and under in January 2005 were either blogs or social networking sites. But it's what's on the sites that concerns Handy and other experts. A study of teenagers' blogs published this year by the Children's Digital Media Center at Georgetown University revealed that kids volunteer far too much information. Two-thirds provide their age and at least their first name; 60 percent offer their location and contact information. One in five offer up their full name. "I wonder if a lot of the bloggers are ... really cognizant that the whole world can read their blog?" said David Huffaker, who authored the study. Experts interviewed for this article could not cite a single case of a child predator hunting for and finding a child through a blog. But there are cases of children being lured through other Internet services, such as chat rooms. "I don't see why pedophiles wouldn't use this tool, if this is where kids are," said Ann Coulier of Net Family News. Great source of friends Blogs and community sites are a great source of entertainment and networking for teenagers. High school junior Mary Ellen Handy -- Mary Lou's daughter -- said most of her friends began blogging when they were freshman. "You can meet a lot of people. I go to an all girls' school, and it's a great way to meet guys from other schools," Mary Lou, who opened her MySpace account at 15, said. While she's attuned to safety issues, "the sad thing is a lot of girls put their addresses, other personal information. So many people don't know what's going on how vulnerable they can be." Because they need a user name and password to join services like MySpace, experts say that many teenage users assume the site is protected. "But then they put their school name in, or their school team name," said. Anne Collier, editor of NetFamilyNews. "They don't realize somebody could put two and two together and figure out who they are."
 * [[image:http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Art/TECH/050428/Revealing_kids3.gif width="261" height="295" align="right"]] ||

Keeley found this website on keeping information private http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11030746/ Plus, If you click on the link, you can see internet safevty for all ages!! This is for ages 13-15

Well heres something that has do do with the topic---by steven Heres the website (i hope) http://www.kdla.ky.gov/libsupport/libwebhelp/privacy.htm
 * Respect their privacy more and talk with them about their online experiences. >
 * Filter sites that are inappropriate for young teens, instead of blocking all but approved sites. Some bad ones will get through, though. So talk about it beforehand. >
 * Give them more leeway on people they can accept IMs or e-mails from. But check and account for everyone, in real life, on their buddy list. No friends of friends. >
 * Make sure you filter or block image searches, which are often a way around many filters. >
 * Block peer-to-peer technologies and get your kids an account with iTunes or another legal music download site. >
 * Teach them to guard their passwords. Password theft is a serious problem at this age. >
 * Teach them not to pirate software or motion pictures. >
 * Have them Google themselves often: screen names, telephone and cell numbers, addresses, full names, nicknames, etc. >
 * Try and limit their use of chatrooms to monitored chatrooms or themed chatrooms on safe topics. >
 * Limit their online use (including text-messaging) to under 90 minutes a day aside from a special school project). >
 * Keep them out of social network or online dating sites such as xanga.com, friendster.com or match.com. >
 * Talk to them about not meeting strangers offline, and agree to go with them or teach them large group safe meeting tips (see wiredteens.org). >
 * Buy girls a copy of “A Girl’s Life Online” (formerly known as “Katie.com”) to read. >
 * Keep the computer in a central location and watch new interactive devices such as cell phones, text messaging devices and interactive gaming devices, like Xbox Live. Use parental controls if they come with them – Xbox does, for example. >
 * Consider setting up a teenangels.org chapter, or starting an online safety club at their school. (Visit Internetsuperheroes.org for available free materials.) ||

[|Photo Usage Permission Form (Child)] [|Photo Usage Permission Form (Adult)] [|New York Public Library] [|Massachusetts State Library] [|Library of Virginia] [|ALA Intellectual Freedom/Privacy & Confidentiality] Results from a 2000 Gallup Poll showed that 60% of Americans are particularly concerned about their personal information being included in electronic databases. Each year, legislation is created and introduced to Congress to protect a citizen's personal information from being stored or used electronically. To effectively promote trust and confidence in your library and staff, certain privacy measures need to be taken with regards to a library's website. As part of good customer relations, posting a privacy notice is an important first step in answering one of the major concerns voiced by your patrons when dealing with your online services. A good privacy notice provides your patrons an opportunity to make informed decisions about the collection and use of their personal information //before// they use a service. Careful consideration should be taken during the creation of a privacy policy: there is no generic privacy policy that can be applied to every library. Rather, your privacy policy should accurately reflect your library's unique services and address any possible concerns that are specific to your community. Also, when creating your library's privacy policy, you should keep in mind that it is not a privacy policy that ensures security. It is the understanding by you and your staff that it is something that will require commitment and the affirmation that everyone, internally and externally, will adhere to it. An act based on "an exception to the rule" will travel fast among your community, breaking the trust of your patrons and possibly crippling the integrity of your library. According to the Better Business Bureau (http://bbbonline.org/privacy/sample_privacy.asp), a privacy notice should include the following: Another consideration in creating an online privacy policy is how the information of children participating in your programs is obtained and managed. The 2000 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act states that any online service directed to children under 13 may not collect //any// identifiable information about a child. This would entail information such as full name, home address, email address, telephone number or any other data that would allow someone to identify or contact the child.Your library is also held accountable to this requirement if you operate a website directed at a general audience and have actual knowledge that you are collecting personal information from children. To comply with the act, a website must have posted a link to a notice of its information practices on its homepage and at each area where it collects personal information from children. The link to the privacy notice must be clear and prominent. The actual notice must be clearly written, understandable and contain the following: For more information about the collecting of children's information, visit the Federal Trade Commission's publication, "How to Comply With The Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule" http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.htm. This is a guide to help you comply with the government's requirements for protecting children's privacy online.
 * Library Web Design - Keeping Information Private**
 * Resources**
 * Privacy Policy Examples**
 * In-Depth Information**
 * date the policy becomes effective
 * the type of information you collect (name, address, phone number, email, etc.)
 * the way you use the information (do you use it for processing the single research request then destroy it, or do you log it into a database to refer to later?)
 * how the information is managed (do you have a schedule for deleting the information? is it stored on a secure PC?)
 * how a patron can access or correct any stored information
 * how the patron can contact you
 * Children's Privacy Policies**
 * the name and contact information of your library's staff who will be managing any child's personal information that is collected online
 * the kinds of personal information that will be collected and how the information will be collected (directly through the child or through technological means, such as web tracking cookies
 * how your library will use the information, such as using email addresses for mailings of future newsletters or notification of overdue items
 * whether the collected information will be shared to third parties, such as your library's Friends or Trustees group, or the local school
 * that the parent has the option to agree to the collection and use of the child's information without consenting to the disclosure of the information to third parties
 * that the online service may not require that a child disclose more information than needed in order to use the service, or participate in any other library program
 * that the parent can review the child's personal information, ask to have it deleted and refuse to allow any further collection or use of the child's information. The notice must also state the procedures for the parent to follow in order to view or delete the information.