What is personal information?
Personal information is all of those details about your life which should be kept private. They are details which could give away information about who you are or which could put you at risk if shared with a stranger.
Here are some examples:
- full name
- address
- telephone number
- birthday
- school passwords
Can you think of any others?
Look at the examples below – can you work out what personal information might be shared? Click the plus symbol to see the answer.
What you look like is part of your personal information, but also think about what you’re wearing! A school uniform could give away what school you go to.
Check what’s in the background and if there are any hidden details. For example, if your dog wears a collar is there a mobile number or address visible on the tag?
Got any balloons? Or candles on a cake? These could give away how old you are – and the date they were shared may give away your birthday.
Do you show your local area? Especially the road you live on or the front of your house – these could give away your address to viewers. If you watch well known vloggers on sites like YouTube you’ll see they’re normally very careful about what details they share with their audience. They don’t want to risk their safety by showing their house on a video, and neither should you!
How long do the things I’ve shared stay online?
Once you’ve shared something online, it can be difficult to take it back. You may be able to remove the post you shared, but you can’t stop other people from copying or screenshotting it and sending it on to more people.
Check out this video from BBC Own It to see how the things you share online could end up being seen by more people than you were expecting.
Things to ask yourself before sharing
Before you post anything online, ask yourself these questions:
- Are you sharing anything that could allow someone you don’t know to identify you?
- Are the things you’re sharing online going to give people a good impression of you?
- Have you thought about how your post is going to make other online users feel?
- Would you be happy for your parents, teachers, grandparents, or even everyone in the world to see what you have shared?
- Have you got privacy settings in place to protect the things you share? Is your account set to private?
If your answer to any of these questions is ‘No’ or ‘I’m not sure’ then think again about what you are sharing and why you are sharing it. Is it something that shouldn’t be shared online at all?