Hi, welcome to Internet Safety for Kids and thank you for joining our program!
As always with our program Internet Safety for Kids, please make sure to watch this episode together when possible, so you all learn and understand these important topics. Don’t allow the adults to say that they already know everything because there will be plenty to learn for them, too!
Today we will have a look at privacy rules and what they mean for kids. In case you want to understand better what privacy means, I recommend that you watch Episode 2 of Internet Safety for Kids in which we explain Privacy and social media. Today we will focus on the rules about privacy and give you some practical tips to make sure you understand what you should do and what you should not do. It is not too difficult, you just have to keep these tips in mind. Ready?
We will explain why is it important, what does it mean, and what should you do. Are you with us?
The first thing you need to understand is that privacy is a universal human right and that means everyone has the right to have privacy. The challenge is that this also means that everyone is responsible to respect the privacy of everyone else. This means that you have to respect the privacy of everyone just as much as everyone has to respect your privacy. And because not everyone does that, many countries have created laws and rules to protect the privacy of people.
Maybe you have already heard of G D P R, which is a law in the European Union that protects the digital privacy of all people living in the European Union. Some other countries have similar laws, but a lot of countries do not. G D P R focuses entirely on digital privacy through data protection, and for example the rules that companies are only allowed to collect your information after you give them permission. And it also gives you the right to see exactly which information has been collected about you. It even gives you the right to demand that all your information must be deleted.
That is great of course, and it helps people living in the European Union to defend their right to have privacy. But privacy is much more than the digital information about you. Privacy also includes for example the right to not be included in pictures without your permission. In many countries that right is even regulated by law. But be careful with this rule because it does not mean that people are not allowed to take a picture of you. They are just not allowed to publish pictures without your permission.
Privacy for children is in many cases better protected than the privacy of adults. In a lot of countries, you are not allowed to publish or post a picture of a child without the explicit permission of the parents. That is the reason why you will see a lot of pictures in for example websites where the faces of children are blurred out. I think that is a good thing and we should all make sure that we pay extra attention to respecting the privacy of children.
Although there is formally no real difference between personal use, for example on your social media profile, or commercial use like in newspapers and websites, most people still believe that privacy rules do not apply to personal use. That is a big misunderstanding. The right to privacy applies to everyone. Always, and it does not matter where or when or even how. We are all responsible to respect the privacy of others, and ourselves.
Privacy matters! The challenge is that we still do not have universal privacy rules that apply everywhere around the world, so the best approach is to protect the privacy of others without exception. Here are some tips to help you with that.
- Do not share pictures where others are recognizable without their explicit permission. It is even better to blur out the faces of others to make sure you protect their privacy.
- Do not share personal information about others without their explicit permission. It is even better to not share personal information about others (and yourself) at all.
- Keep in mind that only the permission of adults is valid, so you will need the permission from adults and not from other children.
- When someone asks you to delete a picture or information you shared to protect their privacy, just do that!
- Pay extra attention to protecting the privacy of children.
- The best way to protect the privacy of others and you is to not share personal information at all! That also applies to pictures!