Lesson 2: What Is Informed Consent?

About 30 minutes — Activity-based lesson

What You Will Learn

This lesson covers:

What informed consent means: knowing what is collected and agreeing to it
Why privacy policies exist (and why nobody reads them)
The right to say no: opting out of data collection
Activity: read a real privacy policy together and identify what data is collected

What informed consent means: knowing what is collected and agreeing to it

This section covers the key ideas about what informed consent means: knowing what is collected and agreeing to it. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Why privacy policies exist (and why nobody reads them)

This section covers the key ideas about why privacy policies exist (and why nobody reads them). Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

The right to say no: opting out of data collection

This section covers the key ideas about the right to say no: opting out of data collection. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Activity: read a real privacy policy together and identify what data is collected

This section covers the key ideas about activity: read a real privacy policy together and identify what data is collected. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Check Your Understanding

1. What is informed consent?

Answer: Agreement to something after fully understanding what you are agreeing to. For data, it means knowing what is collected, how it is used, and choosing to allow it — or not.

2. Why do most people not read privacy policies?

Answer: Because they are extremely long, written in legal language, and designed to be hard to understand. The average person would need 76 days per year to read every privacy policy they encounter.

3. Can you opt out of data collection?

Answer: Sometimes. Many apps and services let you decline cookies, limit tracking, or delete your data. But some require data collection to function.

4. What should you look for in a privacy policy?

Answer: What data is collected, who it is shared with, how long it is kept, and whether you can delete it. These are the key questions.

Key Takeaways

What informed consent means: knowing what is collected and agreeing to it
Why privacy policies exist (and why nobody reads them)
The right to say no: opting out of data collection
Activity: read a real privacy policy together and identify what data is collected

Ready for More?

Next Lesson

Continue to Lesson 3: Protecting Your Privacy

Start Lesson 3

Session Home

Review all lessons and materials.

Back to Session Home