Online Footprint – AI Unplugged

Ages: 10-15

What is your online footprint? What information about you gets collected by your apps? In this activity students will explore questions like these through an interactive worksheet activity. This activity is intended to serve as a very high-level introduction to data privacy and can be used to kick off a class, unit, or workshop with other activities involving data privacy and the Internet. This can be done as a worksheet activity using the provided worksheet or the worksheet can be used as a teacher’s guide to lead a family or class activity.

Key Vocabulary

Data: information used by a computer to learn or make decisions
Digital/Online Footprint: sometimes known as a “digital shadow”. “The unique trail of data that a person or business creates while using the internet.” Almost all online activity leaves a trace. Every trace that a person leaves behind forms their digital footprint. [1] “The five main categories of digital footprints are shopping, finances, health and fitness, news and reading, and social media” [2].
- Active Footprint: data that you share and leave through deliberate choices on the Internet. For example, posting on social media platforms, location data, online comments, photos and videos, filling out online forms, installing cookies [2]
- Passive Footprint: data that you leave behind without intending to, or sometimes, without knowing [2]
Cookies: “Cookies are bits of data that are sent to and from your browser to identify you. When you open a website, your browser sends a piece of data to the web server hosting that website. This data usually appears as strings of numbers and letters in a text file. Every time you access a new website, a cookie is created and placed in a temporary folder on your device. From here, cookies try to match your preferences for what you want to read, see, or purchase. A common analogy for a cookie is a coat check ticket at a concert or event: It’s something you receive from a service, has no intrinsic value outside of the event, and is tailored exactly to you. However, you’ll need it if you want to get your coat back.” [3]
- 2 types of cookies:
  - 1 Authentication cookies: these cookies save a user’s info when they log into a website [3]
  - 2 Tracking cookies: these cookies record your web activity and sav info about your online “session” [3]
- First-party cookies: cookies created by the websites themselves, generally considered to be as safe and reliable as the website itself
- Third-party cookies: usually associated with ads that populate a website, these are distinct from the actual website that you are visiting. These cookies may have tracking info to keep tabs on your browsing history, so that you can be reached with personalized ads by ad and analytics platforms. [3]
  - Ex. If you search for pet supplies, a website’s 3rd-party ads could show you dog food even if the website doesn’t contain info about pets.
  - These cookies are more susceptible to data breaches since they’re tied to ad and analytics platforms rather than the websites themselves
  - You may see the “Accept Cookies” pop-up when visiting a new site, which asks you to consent to cookies or opt out of all but the most common cookies.
Dataset: “collection of curated data” [4]
Algorithm: “a set of instructions that turns something (an input) into another thing (an output). A sandwich-making algorithm, for example, would turn a bunch of ingredients (bread, peanut butter, and jelly) into a delicious lunch (a PB&J sandwich)” [4]
Data Brokers: companies that sell personal info about you. They collect info from various sources to build a picture of who you are and then sell it. [6]

Activity (20-30 min)

This activity can be done on ideally large sheets of paper. Students will be creating their digital landscape. They will consider the apps they interact with on a daily basis, whether for personal or academic use, and their self-reported data nutrition labels to gain an understanding of what data these apps are collecting.

There is an optional pre-activity handout where students are asked to think about the data they think their favorite apps collect. Option 1 just asks students to list while Option 2 asks the students to list and then select 2 apps they think collect a lot, and 2 that collect a little.

A slide deck contains information about the data that their favorite apps collect: Online Footprint Slidedeck

The icons for the apps, data and people tokens are linked below. They should ideally be printed on sticker paper to make them easy to stick on, but they can also be printed on regular paper and glued.

This activity can be done in pairs to account for students that have limited online access. Students can also consider the applications that they use with their family, such as Netflix, to expand the scope of their map.

Students are encouraged to share their map artifact with their parents to generate further discussion.

Activity Discussion

Throughout the activity, encourage students to think about these questions and discuss amongst themselves as they piece together their digital landscape.

What device/s are you using and who has access to that device?
Are your social media accounts public or private? Who can see your posts?

There is no right or wrong answer for the people icons. Encourage students to think and reflect on “who” can see the data. For example, a public social media account, such as Instagram, is visible to not only your friends (both online and physical) but also anyone on the Internet, including parents, teachers and data brokers!

Post Activity Discussion

10-15 minutes

These are questions you can discuss to reflect on the previous activity and the information that you have found.

Reflect on the activity. What was your favorite part? What did you learn
- How did you decide on the layout?
What were you surprised about?
- Reflect on the pre-activity handout. Compare your predictions with what you found out.
Looking at your artifact, does it make you want to use your devices or apps any differently? Why or why not

Optional Discussions with Parents

Students can be encouraged to share their artifact with parents and engage in discussions.

Students can ask parents how comfortable they are with them using certain apps
Students can have their parents go through the activity and have them reflect on their favorite apps

Real World Implications

Apps on our phone need certain pieces of data to work. For example, Google Maps uses your location data to provide directions and find restaurants near you.

By collecting your data, the app experience can be personalized. Apps use AI algorithms to learn from our interests and activity, such as our search history and likes/comments, to keep us engaged on the app!

Sometimes our favorite apps collect data without us even realizing. Some prayer-reminder and fitness apps have been shown to collect location data even when the app was closed, without the users even realizing it! [Time]

What do these companies do with your data?

Often, these apps sell the data they have collected to third parties, such as marketers, law enforcement, political parties and government agencies [NYU]. For example, the US military bought location data from Muslim prayer apps for counterterrorism purposes [Vice].

Risks

The data that gets collected about us is anonymous: it’s not tied to your name or any identifying information. However, with enough data points, it can be easy to de-anonymize the data.

According to a paper from 2000, 87% of Americans can be re-identified through their 5-digit ZIP, gender, date of birth [Sweeney (2000)]

Other risks to consider are what happens when our data then gets leaked or shared publicly. This can happen through data breaches or by simply making your data public. For example, the popular running app Strava’s heat map accidentally leaked secret military base locations through their global heat map feature [Wired].

According to Peter Singer from the New America think tank, “This is the part that is perhaps most worrisome, that an individual’s identity might be pullable from the data, either by combining with other information online or by hacking Strava—which just put a major bullseye on itself.”[Wired].

Thus, it’s important to be aware of what data our favorite apps are collecting and to be aware of how much data we should be giving, when given the choice!