Digital privacy settings and data permissions are essential Grade 9 computer science topics for helping students make informed decisions about their personal information online. This digital citizenship worksheet explores how account privacy controls, app permissions, consent, and data sharing affect online privacy, using realistic examples that students can evaluate and apply to everyday digital platforms.

Rather than treating privacy as a simple matter of switching on a setting, students examine why different controls serve different purposes, why permission requests deserve scrutiny, and why no single action guarantees complete protection. The resource combines reading comprehension with vocabulary practice, scenario-based reasoning, and written responses to develop practical digital citizenship skills.

What students will explore

• Privacy settings: Explain how audience controls determine who can view posts, profiles, and other account details, while recognising that these controls do not necessarily prevent platforms from processing information.
• Data permissions: Evaluate requests for access to device features and personal information, including camera, microphone, location, and contact list permissions.
• Consent and privacy notices: Examine informed consent and identify why users should check what information a service collects, why it collects it, how long it retains it, and whether it shares data.
• Data minimisation: Recommend ways to limit personal information to what is necessary and review account settings and permissions regularly.
• Online privacy risks: Distinguish reasonable permission requests from unnecessary access and recognise the limits of audience controls and other privacy measures.

Inside the worksheet

Students encounter a varied set of tasks that moves from key terminology to application and evaluation. A dialogue-based question introduces contextual reasoning, while a matching activity and a fill-in-the-passage exercise reinforce essential vocabulary. A labelled diagram provides a visual labelling task, and an informational reading passage explains privacy settings, permissions, consent, and data sharing through examples involving social platforms, video-calling apps, and calculators.

Reading-based multiple-choice questions and true-or-false statements check comprehension and challenge common misconceptions. Short-answer prompts ask students to explain privacy practices, distinguish account settings from app permissions, and justify decisions about access requests. An extended-response scenario brings these concepts together, asking students to evaluate a social platform and a photo-editing app, consider consent, reduce unnecessary data sharing, and explain why privacy measures cannot guarantee complete protection.

Included resources

• Privacy Settings and Data Permissions worksheet: The student-facing activities, reading material, diagram, comprehension checks, and written-response tasks.
• Separate teacher guide PDF: Learning objectives, teaching tips, discussion questions, and common mistakes to support lesson preparation and classroom discussion.

Practical classroom uses

Use this Grade 9 digital citizenship activity during a computer science lesson on online safety and responsible technology use. The reading passage can introduce the topic before students complete the vocabulary and comprehension activities independently. Short responses provide opportunities to assess explanations, while the extended-response scenario can support class discussion, written assessment, or a lesson wrap-up about responsible permission choices.

The accompanying teacher guide adds preparation and discussion support without replacing the student worksheet. Together, these resources help teachers address specific misconceptions, such as assuming that an app needs every permission it requests or that limiting an audience prevents all further sharing. The framework is general rather than tied to a named curriculum standard, making the material suitable for general digital citizenship instruction where Grade 9 students are developing more careful online privacy habits.