ACARA Digital Technologies Years 7–8 — Digital Footprints and Data Minimisation
The trail systems leave, and whether the data was needed at all.
Modules (57)
1
Personal data
2
Digital footprint
3
Active and passive digital footprints
4
Personal data stored in online accounts
5
Cookies and trackers
6
Metadata and location in photos
7
App permissions on a device
8
Permanence of digital footprints
9
Digital reputation
10
Right to privacy and security online
11
Privacy settings
12
Managing your own digital footprint
13
Data a website records about every visitor
14
Linking an online form to a spreadsheet
15
Form settings that collect email addresses
16
Sensor data to monitor a person's health
17
Data sharing with third parties
18
Reading a privacy policy
19
Purpose and user of an existing digital system
20
Auditing the data an existing system collects
21
Judging whether collected data is essential
22
Justifying keeping or removing a data item
23
Reducing the data a form collects
24
Marking a form question as optional or required
25
Collecting only the data you need
26
Risks of collecting and keeping too much data
27
Deleting data that is no longer needed
28
Consent when collecting personal data
29
Sensitive information
30
What the Australian Privacy Principles are
31
APP 3: collecting only what is reasonably necessary
32
APP 2: anonymity and pseudonymity
33
Importing data from a CSV file
34
Organising data in a table with headings
35
Filtering data
36
Spotting personal data columns in a dataset
37
Direct and indirect identifiers
38
Saving a working copy before changing data
39
Deleting a spreadsheet column
40
Hiding a column does not remove the data
41
Anonymising data
42
De-identifying survey and interview data with participant codes
43
Splitting and joining text with LEFT, RIGHT and CONCAT
44
The IF function in a spreadsheet
45
Creating ID codes with a formula
46
Generalising an exact value into a range
47
Turning an age into an age band with IF
48
Shortening a postcode to a region with LEFT
49
Re-identification risk from small groups and combined details
50
Checking de-identified data still answers the question
51
Using generated fake test data
52
Primary key
53
Choosing which fields a query shows
54
SQL UPDATE and DELETE
55
Privacy by design for a student solution
56
Privacy check for a data project
57
Writing a footprint finding with evidence
Smaller journeys, one per content description
The same modules, split up so a class can take just the content description it's working on.
12
ACARA 7-8 Digital Technologies: Digital footprints and personal data — AC9TDI8P14
Students learn what personal data and digital footprints are, how footprints are made, how long they last and how to manage them.
10
ACARA 7-8 Digital Technologies: Auditing the footprint of systems — AC9TDI8P01, AC9TDI8P14
Students investigate what data websites, forms, sensors and apps collect, and judge whether each item is essential to the system's purpose.
10
ACARA 7-8 Digital Technologies: Data minimisation, consent and privacy rules — AC9TDI8P01, AC9TDI8P14
Students learn to collect only the data they need, understand the risks of over-collection and apply consent and the Australian Privacy Principles.
18
ACARA 7-8 Digital Technologies: De-identifying data in spreadsheets — AC9TDI8P01, AC9TDI8P02, AC9TDI8P14
Students clean and depersonalise a spreadsheet by filtering, removing personal columns, creating ID codes and generalising values, then check the result is still useful and safe.
7
ACARA 7-8 Digital Technologies: Privacy by design and reporting findings — AC9TDI8P01, AC9TDI8P03, AC9TDI8P14
Students use fake test data, database keys and queries, and privacy by design to build lower-footprint solutions, then report footprint findings with evidence.
Printables for this journey
Every module above has its own free printable worksheet with an answer key. These crosswords and word searches cover the same terms:
✎
Issues in Technology Crossword: Is AI using too much power? and more (Part 1 of 2)
10 clues · Is AI using too much power?, How does an AI actually work?, Compression - losing quality or saving space?, Why file size matters and more
🔎
Issues in Technology Word Search: Is AI using too much power? to What is RADCAB? (All modules)
22 words to find · Is AI using too much power?, How does an AI actually work?, Compression - losing quality or saving space?, Why file size matters and more
✎
Years 5–6 Digital Systems Crossword: Data and networks and Accounts, passphrases and security (Modules 31–40)
10 clues · Modem, Wireless access point, IP address, Data packets and more
🔎
Years 5–6 Digital Systems Word Search: Data and networks and Accounts, passphrases and security (Modules 21–52)
20 words to find · Data transmission, Wired transmission, Wireless transmission, Bluetooth for short-range transfer and more
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Years 5–6 Data & Information Crossword: Data, information and binary representation and Acquiring and manipulating data (Modules 11–20)
10 clues · Representing images with pixels, Primary and secondary data sources, Collecting data with a survey, Spreadsheet rows, columns and cells and more
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Years 5–6 Data & Information Crossword: Analysing and visualising data and Digital footprint and privacy (Modules 31–56)
10 clues · Choosing the right chart, Column and bar charts, Line charts, Pie charts and more
🔎
Years 5–6 Data & Information Word Search: Data, information and binary representation and Acquiring and manipulating data (Modules 1–20)
20 words to find · Data and information, Types of data: numbers and text, Types of data: images, sound and video, Same data, different representations and more
🔎
Years 5–6 Data & Information Word Search: Acquiring and manipulating data to Digital footprint and privacy (Modules 21–56)
20 words to find · Cleaning data, Formulas start with =, Arithmetic operators + - * /, The SUM function and more
✎
VCE Data Analysis Crossword: Types and purposes of data (Modules 3–14)
10 clues · Quantitative data, Qualitative data, Purposes of qualitative and quantitative data, Interviews to gather perspectives on a topical issue and more
✎
VCE Data Analysis Crossword: Data types and data characteristics to Privacy and the Australian Privacy Principles (Modules 25–37)
10 clues · Characteristic of data: accessibility, Characteristic of information: clarity, Characteristic of information: context, Data quality: accuracy and more
✎
VCE Data Analysis Crossword: Privacy and the Australian Privacy Principles and Ethics and APA referencing (Modules 38–54)
10 clues · APP 2: anonymity and pseudonymity, Holding information only for its primary purpose, Security measures to protect personal information, Critiquing a system against the Australian Privacy Principles and more
🔎
VCE Data Analysis Word Search: Types and purposes of data and Data types and data characteristics (Modules 3–24)
20 words to find · Quantitative data, Qualitative data, Purposes of qualitative and quantitative data, Interviews to gather perspectives on a topical issue and more
🔎
VCE Data Analysis Word Search: Data types and data characteristics to Ethics and APA referencing (Modules 25–54)
20 words to find · Characteristic of data: accessibility, Characteristic of information: clarity, Characteristic of information: context, Data quality: accuracy and more
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VCE Spreadsheets, SQL & Visualisation Crossword: Querying data with SQL to Purposes and types of data visualisations (Modules 55–70)
10 clues · SQL GROUP BY, SQL JOIN across two tables, SQL UPDATE and DELETE, Testing a query against the data and more
🔎
VCE Spreadsheets, SQL & Visualisation Word Search: Querying data with SQL to Visualisation components and design conventions (Modules 55–86)
20 words to find · SQL GROUP BY, SQL JOIN across two tables, SQL UPDATE and DELETE, Testing a query against the data and more
✎
VCE Software Development U3O2 Crossword: Analytical tools and the software requirements specification and Legal requirements for copyright, ownership and privacy (Modules 52–71)
10 clues · Purpose of a software requirements specification (SRS), SRS content: requirements, constraints and scope, SRS content: user characteristics and technical environment, SRS content: analytical tools depicting existing systems and more
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VCE Software Development U3O2 Word Search: Analytical tools and the software requirements specification to Ideation and evaluating design ideas (Modules 52–85)
20 words to find · Purpose of a software requirements specification (SRS), SRS content: requirements, constraints and scope, SRS content: user characteristics and technical environment, SRS content: analytical tools depicting existing systems and more
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VCE Data Analytics U3O1 Crossword: Sourcing, validating and referencing data to Statistical analysis of data (Modules 50–91)
10 clues · Setting spreadsheet data validation rules, Removing duplicate rows, Handling missing values, Converting text to numbers and fixing date formats and more
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VCE Data Analytics U3O1 Word Search: Data types and relational databases to Statistical analysis of data (Modules 17–91)
20 words to find · Field sizes, SQL column data types and sizes, One-to-many relationships between tables, Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT in a WHERE clause and more
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VCE Data Analytics U3O2 Crossword: Data integrity to Evaluating designs and design tools (Modules 76–146)
10 clues · Data integrity: reasonableness, Data integrity: timeliness, Participant information statement, Consent form and more
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VCE Data Analytics U3O2 Word Search: Research questions and project planning to Evaluating designs and design tools (Modules 3–146)
21 words to find · What a research question is, Research question feature: clarity, Research question feature: measurability of data requirements, Research question feature: feasibility and more
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Years 7–8 Data & Information Crossword: Representing data with binary and Acquiring, storing and validating data (Modules 9–45)
10 clues · 8-bit binary numbers and the range 0 to 255, Converting a larger decimal number to binary, How many values n bits can store, Looking up characters in the ASCII table and more
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Years 7–8 Data & Information Crossword: Acquiring, storing and validating data to Using digital tools and conventions (Modules 47–80)
10 clues · Creating a database table and entering records, Sorting and filtering a database table, Choosing which fields a query shows, Query criteria with comparison operators and more
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Years 7–8 Data & Information Crossword: Sharing online and managing projects and Digital footprint and privacy (Modules 100–124)
10 clues · Tracking task progress, Roles and responsibilities in a team project, The iterative cycle: create, test, improve, Cookies and trackers and more
🔎
Years 7–8 Data & Information Word Search: Representing data with binary to Using digital tools and conventions (Modules 9–80)
22 words to find · 8-bit binary numbers and the range 0 to 255, Converting a larger decimal number to binary, How many values n bits can store, Looking up characters in the ASCII table and more
🔎
Years 7–8 Data & Information Word Search: Using digital tools and conventions to Digital footprint and privacy (Modules 87–124)
20 words to find · Applying heading and style conventions in a document, Adding alt text to images, Choosing a file format for sharing content, Sharing a file online with permissions and more
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Years 9–10 Data & Information Crossword: Data compression to Acquiring, storing and validating data (Modules 17–51)
10 clues · Choosing a compression format for a task, Content, structure and presentation of a document, Restyling one document with a different stylesheet, Why separating content, structure and presentation matters and more
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Years 9–10 Data & Information Crossword: Interactive content with emerging tools to Data privacy and the Australian Privacy Principles (Modules 83–132)
10 clues · Emerging digital tools, Selecting a tool for an audience and purpose, Embedding audio and video with HTML, Navigation and hotspots in interactive content and more
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Years 9–10 Data & Information Word Search: Data compression to Data privacy and the Australian Privacy Principles (Modules 6–132)
21 words to find · Redundancy: repeated data that can be shortened, Lossless compression, Lossy compression, Run-length encoding: encoding text and more
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Crossword: Networks and Cyber Threats and Digital Footprints and Data Minimisation (Modules 696–726)
10 clues · Substitution cipher, Transposition cipher, Keeping an encryption key secret, Why a Caesar cipher is weak compared with modern encryption and more
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Crossword: Digital Footprints and Data Minimisation (Modules 728–751)
10 clues · Form settings that collect email addresses, Data sharing with third parties, Purpose and user of an existing digital system, Justifying keeping or removing a data item and more
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Crossword: Digital Footprints and Data Minimisation (Modules 752–770)
10 clues · Deleting a spreadsheet column, Hiding a column does not remove the data, Creating ID codes with a formula, Generalising an exact value into a range and more
🔎
Word Search: Networks and Cyber Threats and Digital Footprints and Data Minimisation (Modules 696–770)
22 words to find · Substitution cipher, Transposition cipher, Keeping an encryption key secret, Why a Caesar cipher is weak compared with modern encryption and more
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these worksheets free?
Yes — every worksheet and its answer key is free to view, download, and print, with no account required to access any individual module.
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No account is needed to view or print a worksheet. A free teacher account adds extras like assigning modules to a class and tracking progress automatically — it takes under three minutes to set up and doesn't need a credit card.
What year level is this for?
This curriculum is aligned to the Australian Curriculum (ACARA) and Victorian Curriculum, spanning roughly Years 3 to 10 — from first sequencing and variables through to object-oriented programming and advanced data structures. Start wherever matches your class's current level; each module builds on the last.
Can I print them?
Yes — every module has a one-click Print Worksheet button that generates a printable page with the practice questions and a full answer key.
Is this aligned to a curriculum?
Yes — the module sequence is mapped to the Australian Curriculum (ACARA) and Victorian Curriculum, and a class's progress is reported back against those curriculum bands (e.g. ACARA Years 5–6 sequencing and iteration, Years 7–8 functions and data structures), not just a generic difficulty scale.
Can students use this without a teacher?
Yes — students can start any module and practice directly, no class or account required. Joining a teacher's class with a class code adds progress tracking, class badges, and live Sprints, but isn't needed to work through the worksheets or modules solo.
Do I need to know ACARA Digital Technologies Years 7–8 myself to teach this?
No — every module comes with a full worked answer key, and Cloodit tracks who's stuck automatically, so you don't need to solve each exercise yourself before assigning it or be able to debug a student's work line by line.
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