Privacy Policy Improvements to Protect Children Privacy

Abstract

The achievement of an adequate level of privacy protection is a demanding objective, especially for new technologies. One relatively new but increasing class of users of Internet related services consists of children and young people. However, if Internet services can improve social skills and widen the knowledge minors have, it could open the doors to privacy abuse and misuse. As it would not be feasible to address all the legal and technical tools available within the privacy protection process, this chapter will focus on a specific element required by regulation and applicable both in Europe and in the US: the inclusion of a privacy policy in any website that collects personal data from users. The paper will provide an analysis of some of the privacy policies available online provided by companies that focus specifically on children and by social networking sites. The analysis will couple the descriptive part with suggestions to improve the level of compliance and, consequentially, the level of protection for minors’ privacy.