#DataProtectionLessons: when publishing photos, it is worth taking care of privacy

Let’s take care of our own privacy and the privacy of the people depicted in the photograph we intend to share especially on the Internet - this is the general conclusion to be drawn from the webinar organised by the Personal Data Protection Office on 9 December this year as part of the #DataProtectionLessons series. The second meeting of the series, entitled “The right to privacy – or how to anonymise photos and remove metadata?” was prepared for pupils in grades 7 and 8 of primary schools and secondary schools students.

As Anna Dudkowska, Director of the International Cooperation and Education Department, pointed out in her opening remarks, the timing of this event is not accidental. It precedes Human Rights Day, which falls on 10 December. On that day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Among other things, the declaration stressed the importance of the right to privacy.

The practical dimension of protecting privacy in images was presented by the speaker of the meeting - a teacher at the Special School and Educational Centre No. 2 in Kielce, a school participating in the educational programme 'Your Data - Your Concern'. He explained how to understand the concept of image and how to relate it to the protection of privacy. He also explained under what circumstances an image is treated as personal data. In addition, he introduced the concept of metadata and showed how to read it from digital images. Furthermore, using examples of image editing tools, he presented ways to remove metadata, while showing how these procedures contribute to increasing the protection of personal data.