Overhyped Fear Of Child Predators Leading To Real Concerns About Child Privacy

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Once again, we have a situation of unintended consequences due to politicians trying to make headlines for "protecting the children." As you probably know, the press and politicians have been pushing for a bit of a moral panic over the idea that kids are at great risk from predators online. The truth is that the risk has been blown way out of proportion. Most child abductions come in cases where the abductor knew the child, and most children know better than to talk to random strangers online. Yet, because of all the scary articles in the press, plenty of politicians went around demanding that various social networks put in place age verification systems in order to "protect" the children. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal led the charge in insisting that predators on social networks was a huge problem.

Of course, now that the social networks have started putting in place age verification systems, child safety experts are realizing that this actually creates some serious privacy issues, most likely bigger than any threat of predators. The various companies that are providing age verification tools are building up databases of info on children, and many of them are using that info to market stuff specifically to children. So, now, rather than being mostly anonymous online, various marketers have a bunch of info -- including name, age, address, school and gender -- that they wouldn't have access to otherwise.

And, of course, even though he's partly responsible for this turn of events, Richard Blumenthal is quite upset. After first claiming that he's only just been hearing about such privacy issues, he claims:

"The attorneys general would be very concerned about using age verification to promote marketing or any other kinds of promotional pitches or gimmicks aimed at specific age groups. Targeted marketing may have its place, but it should not be coupled with the issue of childhood safety."

Perhaps he should have thought of that before demanding that social networks hire companies to collect that kind of information.

Filed Under: age verification, child predators, moral panic, privacy