Are Children Well-Supported by Their Parents Concerning Online Privacy Risks, and Who Supports the Parents?

TL;DR

This study investigates parental awareness and support regarding online privacy risks for children aged 6-11, highlighting gaps in knowledge and the need for better guidance for both parents and children.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on parental understanding of online privacy risks and children's ability to recognize these risks, based on interviews and surveys.

Findings

Parents often restrict online access rather than discuss privacy issues.

Many parents lack awareness of data collection risks from apps.

Children show varying levels of risk recognition and support.

Abstract

Tablet computers are becoming ubiquitously available at home or school for young children to complement education or entertainment. However, parents of children aged 6-11 often believe that children are too young to face or comprehend online privacy issues, and often take a protective approach to restrict or monitor what children can access online, instead of discussing privacy issues with children. Parents work hard to protect their children's online safety. However, little is known how much parents are aware of the risks associated with the implicit personal data collection by the first- or third-party companies behind the mobile `apps' used by their children, and hence how well parents can safeguard their children from this kind of risks. Parents have always been playing a pivotal role in mitigating children's interactions with digital technologies --- from TV to game consoles, to personal computers --- but the rapidly changing technologies are posing challenges for parents to keep up with. There is a pressing need to understand how much parents are aware of privacy risks concerning the use of tablets and how they are managing them for their primary school-aged young children. At the same time, we must also reach out to the children themselves, who are on the frontline of these technologies, to learn how capable they are to recognise risks and how well they are supported by their parents to cope with these risks. Therefore, in the summer of 2017, we conducted face-to-face interviews with 12 families in Oxfordshire and an online survey with 250 parents. This report summarises our key findings of these two studies.