A Breach Of Children's Online Privacy

When we think of the types of abuse it is easier to imagine how this may happen in the real world. There are now significant risks of sexual and emotional abuse for children in the “Digital world”. This new term, ‘e-safety’, is concerned with the safeguarding of children and young people in the digital world and ensuring that they feel safe when accessing new technology.

The worldwide increase in technology awakened concerns on how to protect minors. In 1998, the Bill Clinton Presidential Administration developed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) (The Clinton Presidency: Unleashing the New Economy -- Expanding Access to Technology. n.d.). The COPPA was developed to protect children under the age of 13 from the operators of commercial websites that collects information using online services, applications, and websites. In addition, the operators are required to receive a verified consent form by each parent with minor children before any data is collected. In 2012, an amendment was established in response to the influx of public comments and proposed changes.

Individuals and companies having a website must consider if the site is marketed or if it is appealing to individuals under 13 years. Website developers need to be aware of the children’s online privacy protection act that places parents in control of the type of information that can be collected from young children online. The legislation was designed to protect individuals less than 13 years about the dynamic nature of the internet. The statute applies to commercial websites and online services aiming children under 13 that collects, make use of information and gathers personal information from children. The act also applies to general websites and an online service that receives application and extracts personal information from individuals under 13. The paper provides the measures that sites can use to ensure their website does not violate the

Today, the Internet has an important impact on our daily lives. We use it for communication, research, etc. Unfortunately sometimes the Internet can be a dangerous place and we have to be cautious when using it. We do not have as much privacy as we used to have 30 or 40 years ago. The article “The Undercover Parent”, discusses the issue of whether or not parents should put spyware on their child’s computer to monitor everything that they are doing.

Our nation is built upon its foundation from the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Included within this governing document is the Fourth Amendment, the laws and guidelines that gives the people the right to privacy. Within in this amendment, it is stated that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated” (Magruder’s American Government 772). Despite the fact that these right are clearly stated and profound, recent advances in the scopes of technology and social media have violated the people’s privacy by deceiving them into thinking they are protected.

In the article “The Internet: A Clear and Present Danger?” written by Cathleen Cleaver presents a straightforward claim of the need for government laws to administer what is being displayed on the internet. The article begins with a few realistic examples of what is possible to occur to internet users when someone obtains a free entry to their confidential information in their computers. The point she addresses mostly throughout the article is how dangerous it is for children. The example she uses to demonstrate the danger it may have on children is that a pedophile could chat with your child, disguising as a “twelve-year-old.” They may establish an “online relationship” and arrange to meet someday after school, with the intention of molesting

As an American, we know, and are immune to this country starting to build on technology. Where every call or click online can be traced back, stored, searched and put together to reveal a portrait of private life. However, current law gives little privacy protection to information about these activities, overstepping the First and Fourth Amendment safeguards that are guaranteed to individual freedoms. There are two cases to be discussed, Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller, two of the most important Fourth Amendment decisions of the 20th century. “In these two cases, the Court held that people are not entitled to an expectation of privacy in information they voluntarily provide to third parties” (Thompson, para. 1). This proposition, know as the third-party doctrine, permits the government access to a vast amount of information about individuals, such as the websites they visit, who they have emailed, the phone numbers they call, and their utility, banking, and education records.

An example from the report is most companies have a privacy policy in which it lets their consumers know upfront what it going to be done with their information. The policy could read that it will “not knowingly collect, use, or distribute personal information” about children under the age of 13 (Molnar and Bominger, pg. 8). This may provide parents/guardians with a false sense of security because the company may not ask the age of the consumer interacting with its

Coben says,”surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence” (Coben 1).Even though the internet is a dangerous place parents should trust that their children know right from wrong.

Due to the technology available today children of all ages have access to the internet. In the 1960’s the internet became a major source of marketing, sales, and distribution of both products and services. Unfortunately many of these services were used by children under the age of 13 years old (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), 2011).

Internet safety has been an extensive issue for children and adolescents since accuse to the Internet has become readily available in homes. With Internet use increasing at such rapid rates and a large proportion of adolescents using the Internet daily, the awareness of Internet safety should be addressed. The term Internet safety can be defined as “the knowledge of maximizing an individuals safety to private information, and self protection from using the Internet”. The impact and influence that the Internet has on adolescent life is far-reaching and research findings by Norris (2007) indicate that one-quarter of the American youth that go online at home, do so in the privacy of their rooms. Additionally, with the recent trend of wireless connections there has been a profound expansion in private Internet usage. The diverse means by which adolescents are using the Internet has become coupled with inherent risks of unsupervised and uneducated use.

The time in which children spend on the computer/tablet will be limited. I will also discuss with the children about the importance of keeping safe online, not forwarding on chain letters, not talking to people they don’t know, not giving out personal information that could enable people to identify them, to tell me if they are worried about anything and to never arrange to meet anyone they have spoken to online.

The concern about privacy on the Internet is increasingly becoming an issue of international dispute. ?Citizens are becoming concerned that the most intimate details of their daily lives are being monitored, searched and recorded.? (www.britannica.com) 81% of Net users are concerned about threats to their privacy while online. The greatest threat to privacy comes from the construction of e-commerce alone, and not from state agents. E-commerce is structured on the copy and trade of intimate personal information and therefore, a threat to privacy on the Internet.

The moral agents in this situation are the children, the parents and the application developer. The children have a few possible choices that their allowed to make regarding this situation where their privacy is invaded. They could research and look into using applications that will hide their location, their data and other important information the parents might want to know about their kid. Or the children can choose the less moral route of completely removing the application from their device or blocking it. The parents are faced with a tough ethical decision of whether or not to monitor their kids. Because if the parents monitor their kids, then the safety of the kids will

In the emerging generation, advertisements have been dominating the generation like never before. It has developed a threat that arises, and affects privacy, and how certain ads are portrayed. This is based on the fact that advertisements have developed strategies to tailor the ads accordingly. This enables advertisers to send ads, regarding restaurants and movie theaters. These ads, continue to further take advantage of information, and the ways that customers view ads. As advertisers, become enabled they develop the ability to monitor online activity. Online activity is affected by the amount of information that is collected. According to advertisers “Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL and Myspace recorded 336 billion transmissions in which the consumers’ data were sent back to the web companies servers”(Kanner). The amount of consumer data is affected by the amount of ads portrayed on website, this amount affects teenagers by reducing their privacy. The only way, teenagers aren’t affected by marketers is by beginning to “Guard their life with adequate privacy settings "(Schiff). Once teenagers, attempt to protect their privacy, marketers continue to attempt new levels of intrusiveness, and violate privacy rights.