Technology Scenario #7

Mrs. Peters enjoys working with technology.  She has been working with computers for several years now and has her own website to allow friends to keep up with what her family is doing.  Every year she posts her family's holiday photo on the website.  A friend who lives overseas contacts her an says that she saw her family's photo being used as an advertisement.  Neither Mrs. Peters nor her husband know anything about it.  How do you protect your identity?

I think Mrs. Peters had a great idea to keep her friends and family updated with what her and her family have been up to, especially since she has family and friends that live far away from her.  There is nothing wrong with what Mrs. Peters did.  What I will say is that I think there are better tools out there that are less public that Mrs. Peters could use to ensure that only people she invites can see what her and her family have been up to.  For example if Mrs. Peters created a family blog that she updated she can set the privacy setting so only people on the list she creates can read it.  This will eliminate people she does not know taking pictures from her website and using them for advertisements.  Although I do not believe Mrs. Peters was using the technology inappropriately she should be aware of ways to protect her identity from those people who take advantage of the many things you can find and perhaps take from the internet.  After researching this topic there were many tips on How to protect your Identity.  For example this Article suggested that you do not make personal information public, you should check privacy settings, strengthen and use multiple passwords.  If Mrs. Peters took the time to learn more about how to protect her and her family online, this issue could have been avoided.  Although she was not doing anything wrong she needs to remember that there are many people out there that do not use technology appropriately.  The person that took her families photo and made it an advertisement is definitely using technology inappropriately because he/she is using Mrs. Peters picture without consent.