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It’s hard to erase a digital paper trail

2 min read

We live in a society where everything is documented on the Internet. Everything. Unfortunately, the digital paper trail that we all leave behind is far more difficult to erase than an actual paper trail.

Last week in the Peters Township School District, a middle school student was found to have inappropriate photos of females on his cell phone – nude and partially nude. This, despite a program that the district offered last fall called “The Darker Side of Social Media,” which warned students of the dangers of taking, sending or receiving questionable photos on their cell phones, among other issues.

Such photos floating around would be devastating for adults, and the repercussions will no doubt be worse for a teenage girl, not yet mature enough to handle the consequences of the photos ending up somewhere other than their intended target – a highly likely situation in this day and age.

So let us remind our readers that what happens online stays online. Erasing one’s digital past is difficult, if often impossible. Take, for example, items in the police beat. Even if one’s name is cleared and record expunged, the information is still out there for anyone who does a search of the name. At best, the article can be updated to say that charges were later dropped or the record was expunged.

Another example is photos uploaded to social media sites like Facebook, SnapChat or Instagram. Anyone can pull them and do with them what they want. That means that today’s partying college students (and tomorrow’s professionals) will likely be unable to completely remove evidence of their nights out, and may find themselves explaining questionable photos to a potential employer.

Many – if not all – school districts offer some sort of education and programming to students and parents about the dangers of the digital age. It would be wise for families to attend these programs together if possible, and have honest and open discussions about them.

The takeaway is this: think before you act. Think before you even take a photo – is it something you would be comfortable sharing with the world? Because even with privacy settings on high, nothing is really private anymore.

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