Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Ford.

Welcome to lesson three in our unit, online and the media, harmful contact.

In today's lesson, we are going to learn about data generation and usage.

We will explore how data can be collected and how it can be manipulated.

For today's lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper and a pen.

You may choose to have an alternative colour pen to improve your work following feedback given in this video.

Before you started today's lesson, you will have been asked to complete an introductory quiz.

If you haven't done that now, I would suggest that you leave the video, complete the quiz, and then come back to the lesson.

In today's lesson, we are going to be looking at how data is generated.

We will then look at how the data is collected, and how it is shared and used.

You will then be asked to complete an exit quiz before you go.

The biggest keyword that you need to know for today's lesson is data.

Computer data refers to any information processed or stored by a computer or a network of computers.

This may be files, documents, photos, music, movies, or any software that you use.

It's also generated when you have accessed any applications on the internet.

Data can be generated.

When something is generated, it means that it can be created or produced.

It is also collected, meaning that it can be taken in and stored.

It can then be shared, and this means that it can be distributed to other people.

In today's lesson, we're going to explore how this happens and how the data is used then by others.

Well, how is the data generated? Data is generated all over the world every day.

Studies show that every day there are 500 million tweets produced on Twitter.

There are 295 billion emails sent each day.

There are 350 million photos taken every day, and five billion searches are undertaken in one day.

Shopping also generates data.

Nearly 32% of UK shopping is done online, and that's before the pandemic has kicked in, providing companies with lots and lots of data about how we shop what we are buying.

I want you to think about the data that you might have generated in the last 24 hours.

Have you sent any messages to anybody? Have you taken any photos? What have you searched online, and which websites did you visit? Have you watched any videos? Have you made any documents, for example, Word or PowerPoint? Have you sent any emails to anybody? Pause the video and have a think about anything that you've used in the last 24 hours.

Sometimes the data that is generated is not accurate, it is false data.

It may have been doctored or changed.

You can see the images here are examples of it.

This girl is not actually cuddling up to a lion.

And this parrot does not have a tiger face.

This may include somebody editing their own photos to look differently, or they might take and copy somebody else's photos and then edit them.

Some pictures can be completely fake.

There's a video that's been going around in the past few months of a sea shanty been sang, and there's four men who had gone out on a night out.

They had their photo taken stood outside a pub, and somebody just turned the whole of this once still photo into a video, a music video of them singing the sea shanty.

Completely fake, the boys had never done it.

It looked like it was a time during the pandemic when we're all supposed to be at home.

But this image was from over a year ago, and somebody was able to turn this into a music video.

I'd like you to think about how you might spot a fake profile.

What would you look for when checking to see if a social media profile is real or fake? Write down a list of questions that you might ask yourself when checking out profiles on social media please.

Pause the video and do that now.

Well, the first thing you need to be looking at is do you think their picture is real? You can select a picture, you can copy it, and drop it into an image search engine to see if it does belong to that person or not.

If you drop the image into the search engine, it will take you to where the image can be found, the original posting of it.

This will be able to tell you if this person is real or if they have used somebody else's image.

Has this profile picture been posted showing their face, or is it of objects or animals? Which one do you think is more likely to be a real profile? If they are showing pictures of their face or their family's faces, or if they're using objects or animals as their profile picture.

Also look into their followers or their friends.

Some might have very few followers at all or friends.

You also need to think, do they know somebody that you know? Has your friend who they know spoken to them recently? Do they know that this profile is definitely theirs? Do they also interact with the friends that they have on these social media profiles? How much activity does the person of this profile do? Are they regularly active? Do they have lots of conversations with people? Do they post pictures? Do they post videos? Do they post any opinions or thoughts, or are they an account that has been set up and then they're not sharing anything? What kind of activity do you see? And do they post regular pictures of themselves in different situations? You should also be asking how they interact.

They might be highly interactive or they might not interact much at all.

They might ask questions, a fake profile might ask you lots and lots of questions that is more personal about your day, your family, the school you go to, but they might not answer any questions about themselves.

That's a red flag.

They also may be more demanding of your time.

How is data shared, and how is that collected? There's a wide range of ways in which data is collected online.

And one of these is through the use of cookies.

You might've heard of cookies.

Usually when you open a website page, it will say that you need to accept the cookies or not.

These cookies trace your activities online.

They are files that are sent to your computer by a website and they monitor how you interact with websites on the internet and which sites that you tend to visit.

There are two main types, the session cookies which monitor just these exploring on the website for that session only.

And there are also tracking cookies which are a type of persistent cookies.

And these will track your files every time you visit the same site, it will track how you use that site.

Let's look at this in a bit more detail.

So session cookies, as we said, monitor your use during that one session only.

When you visit a website, it checks how you use that website just for that one visit.

The cookies will then log which pages you visited, what links or items you've clicked on, and they'll also prevent you from having to enter the same data into a webpage more than once in one session.

One example of this, the best example is when you are shopping online.

So if you are shopping online, you can add items to a shopping basket, go back out of the basket, search for a few more things, add something in.

And that happens because the cookies help to remember what you have included in that basket.

These cookies are then deleted when you leave the website, either you might purchase the products or you might leave them, and the cookies are deleted when you leave.

Tracking cookies are different.

They are a type of persistent cookies.

So that means that they will remain stored on your browser until you choose to go in and delete them.

If a user clicks remember me on a webpage, this gives that webpage permission to put a persistent cookie on your browser to store all your information.

Tracking cookies can also be used by companies to follow your usage of other websites.

Sometimes they hook up and link to other websites, and those websites give them the data and the information about how you are using those websites.

They are useful because they help you to store up wishlists so that you can return at a later date to buy some items that you have been storing up for maybe when is your birthday or when you get some pocket on it.

Some websites may also use these tracking websites, tracking cookies, sorry, to email you to say, you left an item in your basket for the last couple of days.

Why don't you come back in and buy it? So thinking back through that information that we've been learning, I want you to reflect on it.

And I would like you to write down what you think the benefits of cookies are.

Why might they be helpful to a website user? And why might they be helpful to a company? Pause the video and complete that task now, please.

Let's have some feedback on that.

So website users will find adverts, advertisements, that are more tailored to their preferences.

If you are used to liking or clicking on a particular brand, you might see adverts more tailored to that brand or their rivals for you.

They will also be able to easily find items that the user has been looking at.

They'll be able to come back into it and see where the items are.

It might be easier to log in as some pages save usernames, email address, and passwords for their customers.

Some websites will also alter the content depending on where you are located so that you see the information that is more relevant for you.

For example, I am somebody who is in the Northwest, and if there was a company in the Southeast who were trying to target their adverts towards people, but they don't deliver outside of their local area, it would be pointless in spending the money on targeting adverts towards me rather than somebody else in the Southeast.

The benefits for companies of using cookies are that they can gather very, very detailed information about the behaviour of the user of their websites.

This means that they can tailor their website to support the users.

They can also see how many pages a website user will visit, which pages they use less frequently, which products are viewed more often, and when people are more likely to visit the website.

They can email you promotional offers that are tailored to your tastes.

This will lead to a higher rate of purchase.

If I go on every Sunday at three o'clock to look at items on a particular website, they might send me an email at half two to remind me or they might send me an email on a different day to see if that's a day that I might choose to go into their website and purchase things.

We're going to have a quick game of true or false to see how much you have been learning, tracking cookies, true or false, tracking cookies monitor your use of a website for that session only.

I'm going to give you three seconds to pick whether you think that is true or false.

If you said false, you will be correct.

Tracking cookies are a type of persistent cookies, the cookies that stay around, and they will follow your activity over time on a website, not just one session.

One benefit to the customer is that the businesses can tailor the adverse to the taste of each customer.

Is this true or false? Three more seconds.

It is true.

If you allow a company to use cookies, they are more likely to personalise adverts to your tastes.

Final one, if you ask a website to remember your login details, you are also accepting the use of cookies on their website.

Is that true or false? If you said true, then you will be correct.

To save your details, a persistent cookie is then used.

You are giving the website permission to use them by clicking remember my login, or remember me.

So we've looked at the generation and we've looked at the collection of data.

Now we need to know about how the data is shared and used.

Well, data is gathered about users because it's valuable.

It's worth money.

It's worth money to companies who keep them within the company because they can increase their sales by looking at the behavioural usage of the websites, but also it can be sold and shared onto other companies.

When we agree to share on our data, there may be a clause in the agreement that says that you are given permission to share your access to third parties.

Things that you search for on a website, what you purchase on a website are examples of information that may be passed on to other people or other companies, and this is called third parties.

They can't buy your data, but they can purchase access to you.

So let's look at example.

Mohammed was given a new games console for his birthday.

Since then he has been looking all over the internet for the latest football games to play with his mates online.

He has also searched for headphones with a microphone to play the game with his friends.

How might a company use his generated data? Pause the video and have a think, please.

Mohammed might start receiving more targeted advertisements.

His emails or his social media pages may show links to football games, to headphones, to microphones, and also to the online shop for the games consoles where he can find how to buy the games online.

It leads to targeted advertising.

You might notice that you begin to receive adverts.

Mohamad might notice that he will receive adverts linked to any searches that he's done online, because his search information might have been sold on to third parties who are trained to sell, for example, more football games or headphones to different people.

This can also happen if you are speaking around your phone, sometimes things like Alexa and things might show it as a search, and then you might start receiving more information into your social media profiles, adverts containing things that you have been looking for or you've been talking about.

Can you think of a time where you have searched for a particular item online, and then your social media profiles has been showing advertisements.

You can also ask an adult if this has happened to them where they, so for example, they might have been searching for a car.

And when they're on the social media pages, car sales carriages have been popping up in their advert.

Well, how else is data used? So scientists might choose to use this data to conduct a study on the behaviour of humans around purchasing certain items or how they use social media or how they react when they respond to a newspaper article.

Governments might also use the location data to monitor the use of public transport or parks, which buses could be stopped to be used, are people more likely to use trains, buses or cars? Where do they visit more in August? Are you more likely to go to the park, or are you more likely to go to leisure centres? Websites might choose to use it for their own research.

Interestingly, insurance companies might also use it to asset analyse your risk rating.

So the particular websites that you visit, how you use your social media pages can be used to decide how much you need to pay for your insurance companies.

This might be car insurance, home insurance, holiday insurance.

Unfortunately there are also fraudsters who might use your data to gain more access to their potential victims. Social media sites might also use the data to help you to find out more about your friends or followers.

It also might link you to people that you might be interested in, pages that you might want to follow.

Before you go, I'd like you to complete a reflection activity.

Your task is to create a learning log for today's lesson.

In your learning log, you will need to reflect on your learning and write down summary notes about the following things that we've learned today.

How data is generated, how data is collected, how data is shared, and how data is used.

Pause the video and complete that task now, please.

Well, thank you for joining me for lesson three of our unit.

And I look forward to seeing you for lesson four.

Don't forget to complete the exit quiz for today's lesson.