Protecting Your Family's Privacy
by Lawrence J. Magid
Privacy and safety go hand in hand and many of the same rules that help keep kids safe in cyberspace can also help to protect their privacy.
Privacy doesn’t just mean keeping your kids names, addresses and phone numbers out of the hands of criminals. As a parent (or as a child or teen) you also have the right to protect your child’s privacy from anyone including companies that might want to sell them something.
It’s real problem. A study by the Federal Trade Commission revealed that "only 14 percent of the sample (674) reflecting all U.S. commercial web sites provide any notice of their information collection practices. Only two percent -- provide a comprehensive privacy policy.
The survey found that "Eighty-nine percent of the 212 children's sites surveyed collect personally identifiable information directly from children; only 54 percent of the children's sites disclose their information collection practices." Finally, the FTC found that "fewer than 10 percent of the sites directed to children provide for some form of parental control over the collection of information from their kids.
The good news is that many of the major players in the industry do have privacy policies and a growing number of web sites have responded to the FTC’s report by adopting privacy policies of their own.When you or your children visit a site look for the privacy policy and do not provide any personally identifiable information until you read it.
For more information please visit the website SafeKids.com.
