A follow-up to my post about internet safety:
Two of my nieces go to BSS, a private girls school in Toronto. Their headmistress, who sounds like a true luddite, only recently became aware of the very active BSS community on Facebook. The girls, on the other hand, were suddenly made aware of the policy manual they each received with their school laptops, especially the part that says the school owns all data stored and reserves the right to monitor any activity taking place on said laptops. The I.T. staff, or as my sister called them, "the fat, sweaty, gross I.T. guys" (keeping in mind this is what I do for a living) had been monitoring the girls' activities and felt they needed to bring it to the head's attention. Parents were then invited in to view photos of and postings about the girls drinking, doing drugs, making out with boys and other very personal information. Isn't this worse than reading your child's journal or diary? My sister said the line-up of prominent Torontonians was out the door. Strangely, they were mostly concerned about the fact that some of the girls had created and joined a Facebook group about one particular girl where they said mean things about her. This is an example of technology raising bullying to the next level but I still think they're missing the bigger picture.
Anyway, the whole episode created a huge flap in the BSS hen house and the girls all blame the headmistress. Too bad because she taught them a really important life lesson about privacy, the public domain and always reading the small print.