All social media require great awareness about privacy concerns. Are you aware of the fact that Facebook stores all about you? 

Facebook archives data, all that is posted on the walls, from the user or his friends, private messages and photos that sets user for no more or less, but 7 years. In the last period, after the upgrade of the social network, and even archived data "poke info", "cookies", former pseudonyms under which the user was registered, as well as data logging and check. Each event created on Facebook ever received an invitation user also archived along with its location, during maintenance, whether the user to declare its presence or not. No matter what the user deletes some data from your account and will not see neither he nor his friends, the data is archived, which inevitably leads to the question whether in fact the personal data of the social network belong to the control of the user.

Either way, you should be aware and know how to protect your personal information and what to do in terms of data privacy abuse. Here are some tips and recommendations: 

Think twice before posting personal information (especially name, address and phone number) on the social interaction.

Respect the privacy of others. Be especially careful with publishing personal information or information relating to another person (like photos or links to photographs) without his consent.

Be informed! Who is managing the service you use? Under the authority of that country is? Whether you are offered options to protect your personal data?

Observe how your children use the Internet, especially when it comes to social interaction, because anything you leave the data as a social network becomes an "open secret."

Use all available settings (settings) to edit the privacy policy of the website.

Limited access to your account should be your option, especially when it comes to search engine indexing.

Use different identification data on the Internet. Usernames and passwords is desirable to be different on different websites. 

Also, Young people communicate and socialize through all sorts of tools starting from applications to talks in video games and sending messages via telephone, and exactly Instagram is one of the most popular social networking applications for smart phones. As an application, Instagram offers an advanced level of protection of the privacy of its users, but of great importance is parents to be very informed of the way their children use this platform and be aware of possible risks and hazards.

Here is a A Parent’s Guide to Instagram. Besides English version, the guide is translated into 6 more languages, which this time into Macedonian language as well.

Data protection is essential: it means privacy and respect, and freedom from manipulation. Nonetheless, some anxiety has followed the European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

You can also consult this Guide for parents - if you are a parent, and want to know more about data protection of your child’s data.  In the guide are also presented the mechanisms for reporting an abuse of personal data on social networks in Macedonian context.

Showing interest in the technologies used by your child, you can learn along with him/her and will know what he/she is doing when "sitting on the internet."

Or you can follow these links:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): FAQs for the education sector
• Implementing the new GDPR: what does it mean for Universities?

#parentaleducation, #internetsecurity, #privacy