Digital-Travellers • Broadcasting Your Personal Details

Inspired by the famous “bottle game”, this fun and collective workshop should enable participants to exercise their critical sense of the information requested by certain online services, and to make them aware of the protection of personal data.

Target group

All, Job seekers, Low literacy citizens, School drop outs

Age group

Adults, Elderly citizens, Teenagers

Proficiency level i

Level 1

Format

Activity sheet

Creative Commons (BY-SA)

Language

English, French , Français

General Objective

Awareness building

Preparation time for facilitator

less than 1 hour

Competence area

4 - Safety

Time needed to complete activity (for learner)

0 - 1 hour

Name of author

Nothing 2hide

Support material needed for training

Bottle (or whatever object that can be spun and be pointed at a person)-Paper- Pens - Hat (or opaque jar to contain questions to be chosen by participants)

Resource originally created in

French

Workshop directions

Introduction

Facebook or Google knows more about us that some of our friends, not only because they use our information but also because we give it to them knowingly. The objective of this workshop is to show how intrusive many questions asked by social media platforms during the account creation process are. We will communicate via spin the bottle that when we ask questions verbally in front of an audience, we will refuse to answer if it is too personal or uncomfortable, whereas on Facebook the majority of people will answer these kinds of questions without concern.

Facilitation tip: To prepare the workshop, make sure to print or copy the questions on paper, then fold them and put them in a hat. Suggestions: close this activity with ‘Walking Debate: Is Privacy Dead?‘. For more information, see the workshop plan ‘Reflecting on Personal Data‘.

Spinning the bottle

Participants should arrange themselves in a circle and spin the bottle in the middle. The first person to be selected chooses a question from the hat. When they answer the question they spin the bottle again, pick out the next question and ask the selected player. That player then spins the bottle, selects a question, etc. A player can choose to not respond to a question — in which case they skip their turn, don’t spin the bottle and don’t ask the next question.

Questions

It is important to retain the ‘us’. The group needs to understand the answer is not for one person only but for the entire group. In the case of embarrassment or discomfort, remind the players they can skip their turn.

Places:

Tell us where you live
Tell us where you were born
Give us the list of places where you have lived up to today and the addresses too if you remember them

Employment and education:

Give us a list of schools you have attended
Describe schools where you have studied
Give us the list of diplomas and degrees you have along with the years. For any adults that might be playing:
Give us a list of your employers and/or the jobs you have had
Give us a list of all your professional competencies

General and specific details:

Give us your email address
Give us your phone number
Make us a list of social media platforms you use. Give us the name of all your accounts.
Give us your date of birth
Do you prefer men, women or both?
Do you speak another language than English?
Tell us if you are religious – what is your religion? Christian? Protestant? Catholic? Muslim (Sunni or Shia?) Jewish? Animist? Scientologist?
Give us your political opinions. Are you on the right, left, centrist, neutral, etc.?

Other details on you:

Are you in a relationship? If yes, with whom? Since when?
If you are in a relationship, is the relationship complicated?
Can you give us the name of a family member, your relation with them as well as a photo? Do you realise that if you don’t give us the information, we can ask it directly of your father/mother/brother/sister if we meet them?
Give us one of the pseudonyms you use online
What is your favourite quotation?

Important events:

Tell us about an important event in your life: the first time you met a significant other
Tell us about an important event in your life: the loss of a loved one
Tell us about an important part of your life: of your new pet if you have one

Timelines, friends and photos:

Amongst those present today, can you tell us who are your friends and who aren’t? We will ask the same question to your friends after if we meet them so you might as well tell us now.
If I showed you a picture of Hong Kong protestors – or any kind of political protestors – being attacked by police (print photo in advance if possible), what would you think of it? Do you like it? Does it make you angry? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you laugh? Does it appeal to you?
If I show you a photo of Donald Trump speaking at one of his packed out rallies (print photo in advance if possible), what would you think of it? Do you like it? Does it make you angry? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you laugh? Does it appeal to you?*

Ending the game and discussion

You can end the game at any time. With these questions it will surely be the case that at some point a participant will not want to answer. At this moment, it is important to remember that these questions are asked by Facebook when you create a profile.

Demonstration: the following are screen captures taken from a Facebook profile page.

When we give this information to Facebook, the responses are accessible by the social media platform and by default by our friends and sometimes the public, if we do not change our privacy settings. Ask participants if they have Facebook accounts and ask them to consider again the kind of information they would be comfortable sharing on social media that they would not be comfortable sharing in small groups in an educational setting.

* The emotions referred to in these last two questions are those symbolised by common Facebook reaction emojis: