Towards an Evaluation of Cyber Risks and Identity Information Sharing Practices in e-Learning, Social Networking, and Mobile Texting Apps

With the growing dependency for online connectivity, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to share identity information surged substantially. Students are constantly sharing where they go, how they feel, and even pieces of identity information such as their age, address, personal pictures, etc. Pieces of identity information are bits of information that, if combined, provide a larger picture of the identity of an individual. Such identity information may enable criminals to obtain financial benefits under the victims’ identity, or be utilized for stalking, bulling, or other harassments. The use of different ICTs such as mobile texting, social networking, and e -learning among students, while most of them are not aware that their digital communication is not encrypted, exposes them to increased risk of identity theft. Given that students spend majority of their connectivity time with school related contacts, the focus of this exploratory study is to measure if there are significant differences on the frequency of identity information pieces they share, who do they willing to allow access to their personal profiles, and what is the level of identity protection risks they report compared between three ICTs (e-learning systems, social networking sites, & mobile texting apps). Preliminary results and discussions are provided.