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YOUTH PRIVACY ISSUES
Description
of issue. Children
and youth are vulnerable to a number of privacy
threats.
- Their marketing
profiles are highly prized. And since children
are avid Internet users, marketers have attempted
to capture data from their web surfing.
- Children
watch a lot of television. With TV going "digital," (see
below) marketing information is likely to be
compiled from such new technologies as TiVo and
ReplayTV.
- State education
departments are developing databases that track
students throughout their K-12 school years.
- States are
developing databases to track children's vaccine
inoculations.
- Students
are often asked to complete surveys that ask
sensitive questions about themselves and their
families.
- Given the
incidents of violence in schools, administrators
and school psychologists have the incentive to
use profiling tools (Mosaic is one example) to
attempt to identify individuals who are supposedly
predisposed to violence, and then share that
information with local law enforcement.
Looking
ahead. While these
threats do not necessarily interrelate with one
another, it is evident that children and youth
are the targets of a great deal of data collection.
Congress has acted to limit online data collection
from children under age 13 by passing the Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act, implemented in
April 2000. And the Bush Administration signed
into a law a provision to require that schools
give parents the opportunity to opt the student
out of participation in marketing related surveys
that collect personal information. This is part
of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
But
as we've seen with the other issues discussed in
this report, laws are not able to keep up with
the fast pace of technology. Children are early
adopters of computer and wireless technologies,
and are far more skilled than many of their elders
in using them. Children are also voracious consumers
of the latest trends in clothing, music, sports,
and entertainment. Marketers are not likely to
bypass the opportunity to collect data from children
and to solicit both them and their parents. The
tension between laws and technology regarding children
will persist for time to come.
Read the entire aricle here: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/Privacy-IssuesList.htm
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