Just a few of the sites where people I know store data and photos.

Over the past several days I’ve heard more people say that they will stop using the cloud — a reaction to the stolen pictures, possibly taken from iCloud, of movie stars and celebrities (September 2014).

Hummm…  How about being a bit more realistic?

This is a great teaching moments for 21st Century parents, kids, and anyone who works with children. We need to remind ourselves that, no matter what a website tells us, our security depends on the many steps that each of us takes to protect and reinforce our information — passwords, privacy settings, 2-step verifications. Most of use the cloud, and often we don’t even think about it or take our privacy that seriously until something goes wrong.

The Ogden, Utah Standard Examiner newspaper recently published an article, Avoiding the Cloud Won’t Guarantee the Safety of Your Data. Reporter Leslie Meredith writes, “… avoiding the cloud does not guarantee the safety of your data,” and then spends the bulk of the piece describing the steps that each person needs to take to ensure added security and protection. It doesn’t matter what we use — cloud, Flickr, Google, or any of the other storage sites.

The bottom line — each of us has a responsibility to put robust privacy settings in place on our accounts and devices. We also need to back up our data (not just on the cloud), use strong passwords, and whenever possible use the 2-step verification option.

And we need to teach our children these lessons, too.