Unit 1 · Topic 01 · Digital Safety and Citizenship
An orange box popped up on the lab screen. "WIN A FREE CRICKET BAT! Just fill the form!"
Anaya was typing before Kabir could turn his chair.
Pixel, the lab's grumpy old desktop, groaned through its fan.
The form had eight boxes. Anaya filled them fast. Favourite sport: cricket. Favourite snack: samosa. Class: 4. Then the boxes changed.
House address. Mobile number. Password you use.
"Wait, should we?" said Kabir. He laid his hand flat over the keyboard.
"It's for a bat," said Anaya. "A free one."
"Free from who?" said Kabir. "Who made this form?"
Nobody knew. There was no school name on it, no teacher's name. Just an orange box and a smiling bat.
Anaya had already typed her mobile number. The address box was still empty. Pixel's fan groaned again, louder.
Ms. Rao looked at the screen for four seconds. She did not shout. She asked one question.
"Anaya, if a stranger at the bus stop asked you these same eight things out loud, which would you answer?"
Anaya thought. "Cricket. Samosa. Class 4. Sure."
"And the phone number?"
Anaya went quiet. "No. Obviously not."
"Then the screen doesn't change your answer," said Ms. Rao. "A form is just a stranger who types."
They closed the tab. Ms. Rao showed Anaya how to tell her mother, and how to change a password, just in case. Anaya never got a bat. She also never got the hundred junk calls her cousin in Pune got last Diwali.
Kabir folded a page into two columns and sorted all eight boxes in two minutes.
"Yours is boring," said Anaya.
"Mine has a phone number that still works," said Kabir.
Kabir's two columns have real names.
Personal information is information about you that does not show which person you are. Favourite sport. Favourite food. Birthday month. Millions of children share those answers.
Private information can be used to find you, contact you, or pretend to be you: your address, your phone number, your password, your parent's UPI details.
The test is not "is this a secret?" It is: could someone use this to reach me, or log in as me? If yes, it is private. Private information goes to family, teachers and doctors — never to a website that demands it before handing over a prize.
Fold a page down the middle. Write PERSONAL on the left, PRIVATE on the right.
Sort these eight: first name, full address, favourite colour, pet's name, birthday month, full date of birth, school name, password.
Two of them are tricky. Ask a grown-up where they would put those two, and say why if you disagree.
Loading questions…