The ICO spoke to 2,000 young people about their experiences of using social networking sites. The results showed us that when you post stuff online, you don’t always think about who might access that information.
Almost 60% of the people we spoke to never considered that what they put online could remain online and be seen by other people in the future. This could be a worry, when you think that colleges, universities and potential employers might use the internet to find information about you when you apply for a job or a place at college.
You probably wouldn't want a college, university or potential employer to conduct an internet search on you unless you could first remove information about yourself from the web, including social networking sites.
Alisha and Tim* shared their experiences with us. Alisha, 16, said:
'I put together a Facebook profile for my friends’ band. They uploaded their songs, some of which included nasty lyrics about a boy in my year. The songs were really horrible and I asked my friends to take them off the page but they wouldn’t.
'When the boy complained to teachers about the songs, my friends said that I had made the Facebook page. I was called in to see the headmaster and I got told off, even though I hadn’t written the songs.'
Tim, 18, said:
'Bullies sometimes use social networking sites to get at people. One girl in my class also had her Twitter account hacked by someone she knew, and they tweeted a load of nasty things pretending to be her.
'You have to be really careful with passwords, because if someone gets into your profile they can change what’s written there'.
If you would like to share your experiences of social networking, please email us at websitefeedback@ico.gsi.gov.uk.
*Names have been changed
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