Lesson 3. Ethics of sharing data 

This lesson will help the viewer understand why personal data is valuable, what value it has and how it is being treated in general in our society nowadays. 

Open access to personal data, doxing, cyberstalking and cyberbullying are tied together. 

Let us explain how. 

Doxing isn’t always done with negative intent – it often serves legal purposes. For instance, for advanced policing techniques.

However, regardless of the intent, the practice of abusing a person’s privacy is unethical and the harm suffered is very real. 

Here are some recommendations to stay ethical:

1. Treat other people’s personal data like you would treat your own – with care.
   Follow the same principles with other people’s data as you would with your personal information that you can control. Only upload personal data of third parties to reliable resources, do not show it to other people and consider how this data may be used.
2. Only share personal information after gaining consent from people involved.
   Photographs that you took of other people may be considered innocent by you but may seem harmful to others. The same goes for screenshots of conversations, flight tickets you purchased together with someone – pretty much anything that includes a third party and information that may identify them. Remember that you are responsible not just for your data but for others’ data that happened to become yours too. 
3. Always warn others about recording a conversation.
   Besides being universally unethical and disrespectful to the participants of the conversation, covert recordings in some countries are also illegal.
4. Do not share information about your family members or close connections on public social media accounts.
   Personal connections reveal more than you think – they show which people mean a lot to you and hence make you vulnerable. This information may be used not just against you, but against your close ones too.
5. Understand the potential harm.
   It may not seem like a big deal to share or publish someone’s personal data, but the harm to the victim is quite real and can be devastating for several reasons. 
• First, once this personal information is published online, it is permanent and will follow the victim for the rest of their life. It can show up in search results, background checks, job interviews and more. 
• Second, it can put the victim at risk of physical harm if someone chooses to go to their home or workplace or follow them. 
• Third, there is financial harm to consider. Doxed victims have been terminated from their employment or have been unable to work due to the emotional distress.
• And, finally, there can be significant psychological damage.  Victims may isolate themselves from their friends, families and communities out of fear of going online. 

The combination of harassment, cyberbullying and cyberstalking that often accompanies doxing takes a huge emotional toll on the person targeted.   

Anyone considering the act of doxing should appreciate the potential harm it can cause the victim before acting. 

Your data is valuable, and, in fact, there are some people looking to profit off yours. In our next lesson, we will tell you more about those who sell and buy information.