What is data?

Data simply means information that you have shared online.

You could have given your date of birth or where you live when you signed up for social media for example. That is data that someone might find useful, such as advertisers. They are looking to show their adverts to different groups of people, and they will use things like your age, where you live, and the kind of things you like to decide if their advert is going to be shown to you.

Or it could be a photo or video that you have shared. Do you know who is getting to see those posts?

Stay In Control

It’s important that you consider your privacy settings when you are using platforms like social media. These settings are there to allow you to choose who gets to see your posts, but you can also control which apps have access to your data, and what information will be shared with advertisers.

If you aren’t sure where the privacy settings are on the social media platforms that you use, check out the Parentzone link below.

And make sure that your password is safe and that you don’t tell anyone what it is! A strong password is really important. Try to make it something that nobody else will be able to guess.

A strong password will have a mix of upper and lower case letters, and sometimes have what they call a ‘special character’ such as !, £, *, &, or @. Having a number in there is a good idea too.

Always make sure that you have virus protection software on your device, and update it regularly to make sure it is giving you all the protection you need.