Transcript:
Welcome to the third episode of this new podcast series, Privacy and Data Tracking Online. I’m your host, Sarah Wu. This series focuses on trends in data tracking on the web and the ethical and legal issues involved. I will provide some tips for individuals and organizations about increasing privacy online and try to highlight why privacy can be important. I will also discuss issues that are in the media and the courts about privacy breaches and data tracking.
This episode is about teens and data tracking. This is an issue that many parents are concerned about, and organizations that target teens as customers should be aware of, so they can track public opinion, as well as updates to legislation, and lawsuits. Companies have been data tracking their teen users to learn about online behaviors so that they can market their products at them, and some of the larger companies understand the detriment their platforms can cause to teens, including mental health issues. But on the flip side, there are some companies that do emphasize privacy online.
So there is a law in place to protect kids from being tracked online in the U.S, and that is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This act has had its loopholes exploited somewhat by big tech. For example, it only requires a company seek parental consent to collect data about the minor if they know that someone under 13 is using their app or website. Companies have been getting around this law by claiming that they don’t know for sure who their users are.
Some states have passed laws to increase protection to minors on the internet, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah. And the California Consumer Privacy Act requires businesses get parental consent to sell or share data from users who are under 13, and to obtain consent from users aged 13-15 before selling or sharing the data.
To avoid potential legal issues, companies should be looking at what types of personal data they are collecting from minors, and who they share that data with and why. A risk assessment could help companies figure out ways to minimize the risk of a lawsuit down the line if they have been sharing minors’ personal data. Having an attorney on the risk assessment team can be a way to shield internal communications from disclosure in the case of a lawsuit, because of attorney-client privilege. I just want to flag here that I am not an attorney, so seek one out if you want to explore this issue further.
I think that companies should be trying harder to ascertain the age of their users, to mitigate risk of sharing minors’ data without the required consents. And companies should also aim to collect the minimum of personal data from minors, such as just a first name and no last name, and should not ask minors for detailed personal information, such as their address.
Social media and gaming platforms should be careful about using algorithms on minors that increase addiction, as this could be something that public opinion, and potentially legislators, come after in the future.
Companies could also offer more parental controls, such as parents being able to set limits on the time their child can use a platform, and also locking up certain functions of a platform that parents think their child is not ready for. Tiktok has tried this, and we will discuss this a bit later in this episode.
Most parents are monitoring their children’s internet use in various ways, according to a Pew Research Center study from 2016, and this includes reading texts, looking at their teen’s social media, and checking what websites their teens have been browsing. This suggests that parents are concerned about their teens’ interactions in online spaces.
Social networks have been paying attention to parents’ opinions. SnapChat has a page explaining how teens have increased privacy settings by default, limited access to unmoderated content, and no access to public profiles.
TikTok has had legal issues though. It was sued by state attorneys general in 2024 for violating minors’ privacy. The Kentucky AG’s complaint alleged that regular users can become addicted to the site in just 35 minutes. TikTok executives had apparently internally acknowledged the mental health costs of spending too much time on the platform and were aware of how it was making teens less likely to turn in homework and complete other tasks. TikTok introduced a time-limit as a parental control, but internal documents that came out during the lawsuit showed that the time-limit controls did little to reduce teens’ use of the platform, so these efforts were framed by critics as a PR stunt.
One newer platform that is big on user privacy is Gan Jing World. The platform, which is like YouTube, has its own servers and doesn’t share data with third parties. It also does not use an addictive algorithm to trap users on its site perpetually. So if your child likes YouTube, it might be a good alternative.
That’s all for this episode of Privacy and Data Tracking Online. Thanks for joining me.