# Data ownership judgments in childhood

## TL;DR

This study explores how children understand data ownership and rights, revealing that by age 8, they recognize personal data as belonging to users.

## Contribution

The study introduces a developmental perspective on data ownership, showing children as young as 8 view data as property.

## Key findings

- Children ages 5–12 recognize users as owners of personal information.
- By age 8, children understand data as property and who controls it.
- Findings suggest coherence in children's understanding of non-physical property.

## Abstract

As adults, we experience discomfort when we hear about how our data has not been safeguarded by apps. Despite this being a common experience, the psychological processes that underlie people’s reasoning about data ownership and rights are poorly understood. Using a developmental approach, the current investigation examines the psychology of data ownership. We test the specific proposal that people have a coherent theory of ownership that leads them to view data as owned and under owners’ control at the same developmental time point. In both studies (N = 218), children ages 5–12 were told about a user who shares personal and general information with an app. Children then had to decide who it belongs to (Study 1) and who is in charge of it (Study 2). During middle childhood, children view users as owners of personal information and therefore entitled to control it suggesting coherence in their representations of non-physical property types. Findings also suggest that by 8-years-old children have the cognition in place to think of data as property and therefore understand their data rights online.