Privacy
Helping Kids Thrive Online Health, Safety, & Privacy
Large parts of the digital ecosystem are built using a business model that collects, analyzes, uses, and shares vast amounts of information about individuals, including data about usage and behavioral patterns. This approach has enabled the development of free or low-cost services and allowed for the development of recommendations (of content and contacts) and tailored services. However, data collection infrastructure has generated a wide range of privacy concerns, including the disclosure of personal data in unexpected contexts and support for an industry of data brokers who buy and sell invasive digital dossiers about individuals.184
Privacy in the digital space is important for positive youth development,185 allowing them to develop autonomy, learn critical thinking skills, and build trust. At the same time, young people are less capable and experienced in thinking through the potential impacts of sharing personal information and communications (including images) and may not be aware of the implications of the background collection of data in complex digital ecosystems.
Collectively navigating privacy can be particularly challenging for teens and their families. Older adolescents are at a developmental stage at which they are learning how to make decisions as emerging adults. However, as they become more interested in asserting their independence, some may be more likely to overshare personal information online or to be targeted by advertisers or bad actors.186 Additionally, the pervasiveness of technology today raises significant questions about the impact of constant surveillance on adolescent development, having an “always-on” online audience, the inability to make mistakes without a permanent record, and social pressures including the fear of missing out.
The economic incentives of online platforms are often at odds with privacy protection. Small companies, including developers that are driven to collect and monetize personal information may not prioritize incorporating privacy or safety features.187 188 189
Furthermore, it may be necessary, but not sufficient, to focus on helping youth learn to make better decisions in protecting their privacy. Researchers have highlighted the apparent disconnect between the stated value that individuals place on privacy, which tends to be high, and their data sharing and use behaviors on online platforms, which often seem to contradict those values.190 However, this disconnect may reflect more about the particular design choices of those online platforms than pertain to a contradictory response from users. What data is collected and used about users—including youths— often cannot be modified by users. However, even users who have a clear sense of their privacy preferences may not be able to enact those preferences due to design choices by the online platforms. To the extent that choices are available, it may be especially difficult for youth to exercise those choices, as they may not be developmentally ready to understand privacy risks or effectively weigh the tradeoffs around privacy. Generally, older teens should be empowered to exercise more control and autonomy over their online experiences, supported by adequate default privacy protections.
184 NTIA KOHS RFC, Comment from Internet Safety Labs. Nov. 16, 2023.
185 S. Livingstone, M. Stoilova, R. Nandagiri, "Children’s data and privacy online: Growing up in a digital age. An evidence review.
186 V. Steeves, and C. Webster, "Closing the Barn Door: The Effect of Parental Supervision on Canadian Children’s Online Privacy." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 28(1), (2008): 4–19.
187 N. Alomar, and S. Egelman, "Developers Say the Darnedest Things: Privacy Compliance Processes Followed by Developers of Child-Directed Apps." Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, (4), (2022): 250–273.
188 R. Balebako, A. Marsh, J. Lin, J. Hong, and L. Cranor, "The Privacy and Security Behaviors of Smartphone App Developers." USEC ’14. Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium USEC ’14. 10.14722/ usec.2014.23006.
189 S. Spiekermann, J. Korunovska, and M. Langheinrich, "Inside the Organization: Why Privacy and Security Engineering Is a Challenge for Engineers," Proceedings of the IEEE, 107(3), (2019): 600–615.
190 L. Yu, H. Li, W. He, F. Wang, and S. Jiao, "A meta-analysis to explore privacy cognition and information disclosure of Internet users," International Journal of Information Management, 51, (2020): 102015.