Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Parents love to say when you’re old enough ….
When you’re old enough, you can [play that game], [go to that movie], [drive a car], [stay out all night], [create a digital footprint], [go to that concert].
Wait, create a digital footprint? You mean an online presence? All the data points search engines and advertisers sift and organize into an internet commodity — an identity?
Actually, mom and dad, they probably already have that.
A report last year suggests children begin developing a digital footprint about the time they develop a physical one. It begins the moment parents post sonograms on their own social media pages and continues through AI-enabled toys and virtual preschools. Today, parents of a 13-year-old have, on average, posted 100 images and videos online for each year of her life.
By the time she is old enough to open her own social media account there will be several “photo albums” of material to fold into it. She may feel an instinct to conceal, not reveal. Imagine, mom and dad, she may even google “How to protect your identity online” because of you!
(And, if she has Kinetic Internet from Windstream, she may get to this “Surveillance Self-Defense” guide from the Electronic Frontier Foundation super fast!)
Recently, experts and academics have begun to remind parents about internet safety and privacy and against what they’re calling “sharenting” — posts of babies’ and children’s images, video and details online (typically, though not exclusively, by the parents themselves). Some authorities have even begun reminding parents that it’s not just ill-advised, it’s a violation of young humans’ rights. Overseas, France is warning parents that in that country they could face fines up to $50,000 and spend a year in prison for posting sensitive photos of their children online without their permission.
Here in this country, two U.S. senators — a Republican and a Democrat — authored legislation earlier this year to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and include an “Eraser Button” so parents (and kids!) can easily delete information, a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Minors,” and a new division of youth privacy inside the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
There’s two reasons to protect personal information, even that of children too new to know or consent. The first is that children grow into young adults who may become embarrassed by the very images and details parents find endearing, or young adults may simply want to start their digital profiles free of old content. In 2017, the BBC reported that a survey it had conducted showed one in four kids are embarrassed by the information that their parents are sharing. There's another study that says that by age 9, kids have really strong reactions to the digital data that their parents are putting forth on social media.
The second eye-opening feedback they uncovered is even when images are restricted to formal occasions and public places, photos and names can quickly be connected (for example, Facebook now “suggests” tags of people in photos, and Google’s “reverse image search” has made images searchable like terms). Even worse, all that personal information, such as name, location, and age markers, are pulled and bundled by data brokers and sold as digital identities to advertisers.
Here’s a few things to weigh and implement in order to reap the benefits of sharing your young one’s good news without oversharing, and without leaving such information vulnerable to predation.
Every major social media channel has privacy settings. Most — Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube (and even browsers like Google Chrome) — have privacy toggles that can be set by the account holder. Here’s three examples of sophisticated choices you might not have made yet.
Speaking of the Facebook account you’ve had since the second Bush Administration (but, really, any social media account you might use to post baby pics), it’s time to cull some of the names on the list. Like [This Man] whom you literally have never met, or [This Woman] you met on Match and had one date with four years before you met your spouse.
That means going through hundreds of names!
This is how to protect your identity online, and by extension, your child’s.
It will be hard not to post pictures of birthday parties, just as its hard for a data miner or predator not to glean a birth date from the image of a cake with candles beneath a post like “Today was the first Big Day for baby Sarah!” But aside from a home address, a birth date is the most meaningful (and it’s the easiest) data point to gather from social media posts. One way to strike a blow for internet safety and privacy is by waiting a day or three before posting.
Finally, when your child is old enough — and a recent survey put the average age kids today receive a smart phone at a little past 10 years old — begin asking her if it’s OK to post pictures of her. Asking for consent from one’s own child isn’t as silly as it sounds. That consent may come up later when she complains about old pictures. Mostly, it makes protecting personal information a childhood lesson. It wraps them up in the decision-making that concerns them. (For more tips, visit https://onlinesense.org/sharenting/.)
Parents who “sharent” should take a cue from businesses. Corporations are taking internet safety and privacy more seriously and throwing more money behind it. In the first quarter of this year, 87 percent of web traffic globally was encrypted, up 53 percent from three years ago.
After incorporating best personal practices, parents should consider what types of additional protection can be offered by their internet service provider. Like corporate America, a little household investment in electronic security goes a long way toward peace of mind!
Check back in with us throughout the month of October at b We’ll be sharing cybersecurity tips, advice and perspectives to keep you and your family safe while using Kinetic Internet.