FPF Advisory Board Member Professor Danielle Citron Comments on Study Showing Parents Facilitating Facebook Use for Kids Under 13

FPF Advisory Board Member Danielle Citron, the Lois K. Macht Research Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law comments in Concurring Opinions on a study released this week by Danah Boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey  that Professor Citron says “sheds new light on COPPA’s failings” and underscores the need for universal privacy protections for all users rather than age or demographic-based protections.   She explains:

“Given the current regulatory attention to COPPA, the study could not be more timely or more important.  The authors surveyed a national sample of 1,007 parents and guardians who have children ages 10-14 living with them.  They found that although many sites restrict access to children, many parents knowingly allow their children to lie about their age–indeed, they often help them do so– to gain access to age-restricted sties in violation of the sites’ ToS.  This is true for some of the most popular social media sites and services, such as Facebook, Gmail, and Skype.”

Professor Citron then asks “What does all of this tell us?”   She believes that “[r]ather than providing parents and children with greater options for controlling the use of youth’s personal information, COPPA has actually encouraged the adoption of formal limits on children’s access to online services.  Those limits are rather meaningless, though.”

 

The entire piece by Professor Citron can be found here.