Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Ford.

Welcome to lesson four in our unit, online and the media, rights, responsibilities, and keeping safe.

In today's lesson, we're going to find out about what a digital footprint is, how our activity online is traced and how companies use this information to influence our behaviour.

For today's lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper and a pen.

You may choose to have an alternative colour pen to improve your work following feedback given in this video.

Before you press play on this video, you will have been asked to complete an introductory quiz.

If you haven't done that yet, I suggest that you leave the video, complete the quiz, and then come back in.

Today's lesson, we're going to look at what we mean by the term digital footprint.

We're also going to find out how our online activities are traced.

And we're going to explore how companies use our activity tracing.

And we'll finish off with the exit quiz.

What key words do you need to know for today? You need to know what a digital footprint is.

Well, it's a traceable log of your online activity.

Anytime you visit a website, you take part in any social media activity, you send any emails, you search anything in the search engine and any data that you submit to online services, that is traced in a log of online activity.

And that is called your digital footprint.

The more you are online, the bigger your digital footprint will be.

You also need to know what cookies are.

So cookies are used to trace your activity.

And cookies are files that are sent to your computer by a website to monitor how you use the internet and which sites you visit.

There are two types of cookies.

There are session cookies and tracking cookies.

Session cookies monitor your usage during that session only.

When you finish that session, the cookies go away.

The tracking cookies are longer-term tracking files that record the multiple visits to the same site.

So if you visited a site and you go back to it every day or every week, then the cookies will continue tracing you and how you use the internet.

So I want you to have a think about your internet use over the past 24 hours.

If you don't use applications or websites often, you can try this out for the past week.

I suggest doing it as a spider diagram, however, you can create a list.

And the title for this is my digital footprint.

My example is the fact that you're on the Oak National Academy website right now.

So that will be your first part of your digital footprint.

We need to pause the video and add more things to that now.

Okay, so let's have a look.

Over the past week, I have researched online for homework.

Yes, teachers have homework and teachers have things that they need to gather together and information so they will have used online homework.

I have also accessed web programmes for my schoolwork.

So when I've been teaching from school, I have to use particular programmes.

It might be Google Classroom for you, it might be Microsoft Teams, Zoom, any other websites like that that you have had to access for your schoolwork.

I've also accessed social media.

I've watched videos or vlogs as well.

I've read blogs on how to do things well.

I've accessed my school website.

My children have connected to an online gaming platform.

And I've also done some online shopping.

We need to pause the video and see if you can add anything extra into yours, please.

So what's included in your digital footprint? Well, there are two main types of digital footprint.

There's active footprints and passive.

Active footprints are those things that you have left your details on because you've made deliberate choices on the internet.

You may have logged in.

That's an active decision to put your details into the internet.

Passive are things that you have done where you've left your details without meaning to do so or without knowing that you have.

Here are some examples for you.

Active footprints include posting things to your social media pages, any websites that you've had to log into, filling out any online forms and agreeing to cookies when prompted to by a web browser.

Passive footprint examples include logs of how many times you visited a website and this can be tracked through your IP address.

So it might not know your name, but it will know your IP address.

Websites might also choose to instal cookies without telling you.

This is to track you, but you don't know.

Applications and websites also track your location.

So if you've got Maps running on your phone, if you've got Find My Phone running on, then those things will track where you are going.

Social media advertisers also use your footprint to tailor the adverts to your preferences.

I want you to reflect back on that spider diagram now, and look at the things that you said you use the internet for.

I want you to decide which things are classed as active footprints, where you've knowingly chosen to be able to create that footprint and to be traced.

And which ones are passive.

You might not know that you have logged into something, you might not know that your activity has been logged.

Pause the video and add that to your spider diagram, please, active or passive.

So here's some feedback.

So looking at these things, which ones are active and which ones are passive? The active is accessing web programmes for schoolwork, I have to sign in to do those things.

Accessing social media, again, I'm logging in.

Connect into an online gaming platform and buying something online, I am choosing to put my data in for those things.

Things that I've not logged into and I'm not really sure as to whether I'm being traced or not might include the research for the homework, watching videos online, reading blogs, and accessing my school website.

See if you can tick off fix your work now, please.

The next thing we're going to look at is trace visibility.

Who can trace your digital footprint? So we know that we are being traced and tracked, but who can do this.

They are used by companies, social media platforms and hackers and people who want to try and steal your online identity.

If you have antivirus protection and you have a really good network supporting your online work, then you will be able to be protected by some of these things.

There are also other places that will try and trace your online activity.

These might include schools, colleges, universities, potential employers, and creditors who can go back and trace your digital footprint.

Internet safety companies recommend that you control your footprint and what information is available for people to find out about you.

How do you clean it up? Well, you can enter your name into a search engine.

And if you look at the first few pages of the results, you need to ask, am I on there? If I am, what do the things that come up in the search engine tell other people about me.

If it's not positive, I can ask the sites to remove that information about me.

Now, this is one of the simplest things that potential employers, people who might give you a job will do.

They will search your name into a search engine and see what pops up.

You also need to double check your privacy settings.

Have you made sure that your privacy settings are at the maximum setting as possible? Can people get into your social media pages and see everything that you get up to on a weekend? Do you want them to? Make sure that your settings are as high as possible.

You also need to create super strong passwords.

This prevents people from being able to get into your logins.

Another tip is to try not to use the same password for all of your logins.

Once they can work out how to get into one of your sites, this means that they can hack into all of them.

So make sure that you are using a variety of passwords for the places that you log into.

Advice is also to make sure that your antivirus and malware software is completely up to date.

If you don't talk date these software, then your data becomes more vulnerable to being attacked.

You can also look at your activity log on your computer, tablet or phone.

The advice is to delete any cookies and applications that you no longer need.

You can also check your autofill settings and delete the information for the websites or apps that you no longer use.

The final advice is to behave appropriately when you're online.

If there are any posts, pictures, videos that might show you in a less positive light, that you wouldn't want colleges, universities, apprenticeship providers, or employers looking at, make sure that you untag yourself from these posts.

It is safer though, to behave appropriately online at all times.

Let's have a look at Aisha.

So Zoya and Aisha had a wonderful time.

We visited this time in the previous lesson.

And they took some videos of themselves messing around.

Without Aisha asking, Zoya has posted them to her social media page.

Aisha is worried that friends and family will see the video that Zoya has posted online.

What do you think Aisha should do to prevent that from happening? Pause the video and have a think about that now, please.

Let's have some feedback.

So things that Aisha could do, she could immediately untag herself from the video.

She could get in touch with Zoya and ask her to delete the video as soon as possible.

If Zoya doesn't do this, then Aisha can report the video to the social media platform that this was shared on.

And as a final support, the platform will include details in their terms and conditions about how to ask the platform to remove the content.

So she can untag yourself or ask Zoya, and if not, turn to the mechanisms that are in place with the social media platform.

So now we've looked at the traceability.

How does our online activity get used by other companies? Our digital footprints are used to target advertising towards us in the hope that we will use or spend money with a company.

They want to find out key information about us to be able to complete this targeting.

They want to know our age, gender, our race, culture, or religion, potential income of the household, our political or personal interests and our shopping patterns.

Thinking about the traceability and how this is used by companies.

I want you to think about some of these questions.

Have you ever searched for something online and then found that an advertisement for a similar product just keeps popping up as you're searching for things, or as you're using social media pages? My husband was talking with his friend at work about wanting a new car.

Straight away, his social media pages were filled up with potential cars.

Have you ever had an occasion where your parents or carers have saved items in a shopping basket and then decided to leave the shopping basket and have a look another time? Well then, the next morning, they've woken up to an email from that company saying, "Would you like "to continue purchasing the items in your shopping basket?" Companies use the information that they gather by these tracing cookies and from your digital footprint to sell you products and services.

This traceability helps them to do this.

And it also helps employers to check out who they are employing.

If you are choosing to employ someone, you want to know that they have a good reputation.

And so in general, people will search your name and try and find out a bit more about your online activity.

Quick rapid review before we finish.

True or false.

Companies use your digital footprint to track what you buy so that they can sell products or services to you.

I'll give you a couple of seconds to think about that.

If you went for true, then you will be correct, well done.

Following browsing a website, you might receive an email or advertisements in other apps to encourage you to buy something.

Next one, your digital footprint can include where you have been on a day out.

Have a think back through the lesson.

Is that true or false? I'll give you a few seconds.

It is true, well done.

When you allow an app to use your location or your phone to use location services, this might be maps or health apps, your phone will record your movements.

Final one.

Can you completely erase your digital footprint and start all over again? Is it true or false that you can? Have a bit of a think.

That one is false.

You can erase some of your data.

For example, you can remove cookies and delete your history.

Well, a lot of your digital footprint cannot be deleted.

Well, thank you for joining me for our lesson today.

Remember to fill out the exit quiz and I look forward to seeing you in lesson five of this unit.