This Is Your Life 2.0

This is a wake-up call to examine the online you. Everyone’s life changes, and those pics of you and your friends blotto on Granville St may not be the best image to represent you  – to prospective employers, grad school admissions boards, your parents.

What exactly is a digital tattoo?

Digital Tattoo is a UBC project designed to make students more aware of their presence on the bare-all, privacy-theft, market-driven internet.

Your digital tattoo is the stuff you say, you post, you share online, like images, media files, and personal data. It seems fun, harmless and/or as fleeting as a fake tattoo, but those postings and that information can be permanently accessed or stolen once you publish it.

From social network privacy settings to the trustworthiness of web sources for research to increasing your (positive) online profile for potential employers, the Digital Tattoo website is a treasure-trove of valuable information, tutorials and resources.  Their big lesson is “Think Before You Ink”.

Today’s lesson will be provided by the Digital Tattoo website .

1. Go to Digital Tattoo.
2. Take the Assess Yourself quiz on the right side of the home page. Review their suggestions on how to clean up your online act.
3. Click on Protect.  Read the info on this page.
4. Click on Adjust Your Privacy Settings under Protect Yourself on the right menu. Complete the tutorial.
5. Check out the Useful Resources and New and Noteworthy links. Follow the one that takes your fancy and see what it has to say about internet privacy.
6. Select another tutorial of your own choosing from the Protect section or any other available major section (Connect, Learn, Work).
7. Watch this short video from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:
   
8. Think about your digital tattoo and the information on this site. Are you a little freaked out? Do you think you will change some of your online habits? Which ones? Post your thoughts in the comments below.

from Digital Tattoo:
Top Ten Things You Can Do to Protect Your Privacy

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Identity Theft – Questions and Answers
Social networks: after privacy, beyond friendship

This lesson was created for the Digital Media Project, a joint project of UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies and the Irving K Barber Learning Centre.