Internet Safety Tips[/hr] Face Shots Reveal Too Much!
We've all seen the typical school Web site filled with pictures of smiling children. It promotes a positive image of your school, right? Yes, but it also does something else. It gives evil people who prey on children the opportunity to identify and track your students. Those Web photos work both ways. Which result do you really want? It just doesn't make sense to expose children to danger.
I was surprised to discover that many teachers and administrators disagree with my view. They seem to think that the dangers are exaggerated. I would like to suggest that they do two things:
- Monitor their students' online activities.
See how easy it is to recognize children from online photos.
Cara Branigan's article, FBI urges schools to ban web-site student photos, but not all educators agree, in eSchool News is arresting to say the least. Read it and then ponder these easy to implement solutions. Discuss the issue with your faculty, staff, and, of course, your board. Avoid potentially unpleasant legal consequences and public relations nightmares by being aggressively proactive.
Explain pedophilia and how pedophiles operate in Internet chat rooms.
- Teach children to understand how dangerous it is to chat with strangers, especially ones they can't even see.
- The chat room member who appears to be another 14 year old may actually be a 40 year old.
- Do not allow your students to access chat rooms at school.
Discourage their use at home. - Urge parents to supervise the use of mySpace.
- Engage your parents in a discussion about Internet safety issues.
- Spell out Internet access restrictions and use clearly in your school's Acceptable Use Policy.
- Enforce your school's AUP.
Never post pictures of current students on your school's external Web site.
- A picture makes it easy for a determined person to track a student down.
- If you must use photos of young people, use models or photos of students from 5-10 years ago.
- Do not post faces of current students in groups or individually, ever.
- Be aware that photo enhancing software can render the worst photo clear and the images identifiable.
Post students' pictures on your school's Intranet only with parental permission.
- Limit your Intranet access to insiders - staff and students only.
- Check the operation of your firewall frequently.
- Restrict access to sensitive information such as names and addresses.
- Change passwords frequently.
- Never, ever, allow students to run your administrative computers.
In conclusion I want to stress the importance of understanding the dark side of human nature. Our students will encounter it soon enough in just about every aspect of their lives.
We must teach them how and why some people are sick and twisted. We must show them the difference between fantasy relationships and real, meaningful interpersonal relationships. In so doing we can equip our students with one of life's most valuable tools. We can and must give them the power to discern good from evil, truth from lies, and reality from fantasy.
