Test debrief first. Then the most talked-about day of the semester: you look at what one app has recorded about you — and bring back the categories, not the contents.
Big Idea 5 — Impact of ComputingCED 5.6 · Flex day
Before this lesson
No reading. Today’s material is data about you. Everything here is optional and private by design — see the ground rules in section 3.
Big Data, turned around to point at you — and a first step into Impact. Everything this unit taught about datasets applies to the dataset that’s being built about you right now.
2
The Hook
Guess: how many “interests” has one app assigned you?
Write a number. Then guess how many of them are wrong. Many apps keep a list of topics they think you care
about, built from what you tap, watch, skip, and search — and many let you see it.
It’s the 5.1 hook again, an hour of phone data, scaled up to
years.
3
The Idea — a Debrief, Then an Audit
Debrief first. Your teacher goes over the test. For each question you missed, write which
of the six traps (5.14) caught you. That list is your review plan for the final.
Then the audit. Many large apps and services have a page in settings called something like
“Your information,” “Download your data,” or “Ad preferences.”
California law (the CCPA) gives California residents the right to ask many large companies what personal
information they’ve collected. You’re looking at what’s already there — not changing
anything, not requesting anything you don’t want to.
Ground rules. (1) It’s optional — if you’d rather not, audit a made-up
account your teacher provides, or write about an app’s privacy policy instead. (2) Report categories,
never contents — “it had my contacts,” not who they are. Your data includes other
people’s too. (3) If you find something that worries you — an unfamiliar login, an account you
don’t recognize — tell your teacher or a trusted adult, and change your password.
Everything from this unit applies. The fields were chosen by someone (5.1). The metadata is
there (5.2). Some “interests” are wrong inferences from correlations (5.9). And the profile is a
sample of your life that leaves a lot out (5.10) — but it still gets used.
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Try It — The Audit Worksheet
Pick one app. Check what you found, then generate your one-paragraph report. Nothing you click here
leaves your browser — it isn’t saved or sent anywhere.
app (optional):
roughly how many interest categories?how many looked wrong?
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Vocabulary
personally identifiable information (PII) Impact
Information that can identify a specific person — name, address, phone number, or a combination of ordinary details that together point to one person.
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Check
Five questions. They preview Unit 7 and Unit 8.
0 of 5 answered
7
Impact Check
Your audit is data about other people too
A data export includes your contacts, your messages, the photos you were tagged in.
That’s why the report is categories only. Protecting other people’s data while talking about your
own is a real skill — the same one companies are supposed to practice with yours.
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Connections
Came from 5.1, 5.2, 5.9, 5.10 — fields someone chose, revealing metadata, inferences from correlation, and a sample of you that leaves things out.
Next: Unit 6 — how all this data travels — the internet.
Returns in Unit 7 — what attackers can do with collected data, and how to protect accounts.
Returns in Unit 8 — what happens when software makes decisions from profiles like the one you just saw.