---
title: "Your digital footprint"
subtitle: "Cyber safety and privacy · Protect your accounts · Lesson 4"
---

# Your digital footprint

**Name:** {{field-24}} **Date:** {{field-15}} **Class:** {{field-15}}

> **Key question:** Ava typed three things into the club app. It knows eight things about her. Where did the other five come from?


:::teacher-note

**In one sentence:** Students sort what an app records into data given and data collected as it is used, judge each sign-up field against the app's purpose, and set an account to its most private while keeping its purpose (AC9TDI8P14 nodes 1 to 3). A 5E mission lesson.

**Students should be able to say:** I can name data an app collects without my typing it. I can judge whether data is needed for an app's purpose. I can set my own privacy settings and explain the trade-off.

**Width:** the unmarked parts are the floor every student does (Engage, Explore, Explain, Evaluate). Typical and Wider sections add contexts, not difficulty. Students work in the online tutorial alongside this sheet.

:::


## Engage


:::keep-together

**Ava types her name, school email and one poll answer into the club app. What else could the app know about her?**

☐ Only what her teacher tells it

☐ Lots: where she is, what she opens, when, and what device she uses

☐ Nothing: only what she typed

☐ Only her password

My prediction, and why:

{{lines-3}}

:::


:::teacher-note

**What happens:** Lots. As she uses the app it can record where her phone is, which pages she opens and for how long, when she signs in, and her device.

:::


## Explore

Try it on the board in the tutorial. Was your prediction right? What was different?

{{lines-2}}

## Explain: does it need it?

Your **digital footprint** is all the data about you that systems record: what you give and what they collect as you use them.

1. $\text{purpose}$ — Start from what the app is for: news about club meetings.
2. $\text{Name}$ — Needed: news is addressed to a person.
3. $\text{School email}$ — Needed: that's how the news arrives.
4. $\text{Home address}$ — Not needed: nothing is posted. Collecting it adds risk and nothing else.
5. $\text{test}$ — For each item ask: would the app still do its job without it? If yes, don't collect it.

### Find the mistake

:::keep-together

**Sam builds the sign-up form. Click the line where it first goes wrong.**

```
 1  The club app sends members news about meetings.
 2  Sam builds its sign-up form: name, year level, school email.
 3  Sam adds date of birth and home address too, in case they are useful later.
 4  Sam stores everything the form collects.
```

Line: {{field-15}}

Why is it wrong?

{{lines-2}}

:::


:::teacher-note

**Answer:** line 3

Line 3: news about meetings needs no birth date or home address. Data kept in case can still leak, and adds to every member's footprint.

:::


:::typical

## Elaborate: the sign-up form

:::


## Make: Elaborate: Ava's settings


Work in the tutorial. Plan first: what will you change, and how will you test it?

{{box-4}}

## Exit ticket

:::keep-together

**Name one piece of data an app collects without you typing it, and one sign-up field a club newsletter doesn't need.**

{{lines-3}}

:::


:::teacher-note

**Answer:** Location, pages opened, sign-in times or device. A home address or date of birth.

:::