Monday, May 07, 2007

Perils of Transparency

A couple of people have commented to me about the recent case of a student teacher who was set to graduate from Millersville’s School of Education--until they caught wind of a picture of her wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup under the caption "drunken pirate". You can read about it here.

Two things:
First, a reminder to students that with an online presence, they are less opaque than they think--what happens in Las Vegas does not stay in Las Vegas, so to speak. Photos, blogs, anything else you might regret sharing in future, may well be there, not easily deleted.

Second, there are shifting and still unresolved questions about privacy and repercussions in a world with so much electronic data. As with anything, the norms (and legal precedents) will lag behind technological change.