Berkman Center Among Inaugural Participants In Privacy Program for Middle School Students
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to be among the inaugural participating institutions in an innovative privacy program launched this week by Fordham Law School's Center for Law and Information Policy ("CLIP"). The project involves the release by CLIP of a curriculum for privacy education geared toward middle-school students. The Berkman Center will adapt the curriculum and roll it out to middle-schoolers, building on a multi-year youth and privacy research effort led by our Youth and Media Lab in collaboration with the Pew Internet & American Life Project and taking advantage of the Cyberlaw Clinic's expertise with legal issues relating to children's privacy.
As CLIP noted in its announcement yesterday:
Fordham Law School’s Center for Law and Information Policy will announce and release a first-ever curriculum for privacy education geared to middle school students on October 16, 2013, at Fordham Law School. The program was financed by a court-approved settlement in the class action law suit against NebuAd. Fordham Law student volunteers taught a pilot program last spring at PS191 in New York City, and now Fordham CLIP is launching a partnership with volunteers from about a dozen law schools who will teach the program in middle schools across the country. Fordham CLIP is making the curriculum available as a set of free open source documents on the CLIP website to any educators who want to use the instructional materials to address the many privacy issues teens face as their use of technology skyrockets.
At the October 16 event, CLIP will give the inaugural Pioneer in Privacy Knowledge Awards to administrators and teachers at PS191 as well as the 30 students who participated in the pilot program. The Fordham CLIP team will describe the curriculum and the national education effort. Parents, students, teachers and the Fordham CLIP team will be available for interviews.
As online technologies become a key feature in young teens’ lives, parents and educators must teach teens about the privacy and safety implications of these technologies,” said Joel Reidenberg, Fordham Law professor and founding director of CLIP. “We’ve designed a program and enlisted a team of volunteers to help educate children about how to use these devices safely so they don’t make mistakes that can impact them for many years.”
The Berkman Center is excited to collaborate with Professor Reidenberg and the entire CLIP team team on this important initiative to educate children about laws, norms, and values relating to information privacy online.
