5 reasons why children should not require
compulsory parental consent for internet service access
Janice Richardson, an international expert on internet safety has approched EPA asking for support of the statement below. She was one of the keynote speakers at the Lisbon EPA conference on the challenges of the digital age. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was approved by the EU last year and will be compulsory for all EU countries. There is regulation in the GDPR making it compulory to acquire parental consent for the use of any online service for children, a step that restricts parents' rights, there are pedagogical concerns about it and it is likely to widen the digital divide. Thus the Board of EPA decided to fully support the statement.
Few adults
doubt that adolescence is a most challenging period… the last thing we wanted when
we were teenagers was to get permission from our parents for every book we
brought home from the library or every place we went to meet our friends. Yet
this would be the impact of Article 8 of the GDPR on our children’s right to access
internet services, and it could give children in different EU member states
different rights depending on whether the age 13, 14, 15 or 16 is the choice
made. The United Nations Charter of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), signed by
all countries in the world except two, recognizes the importance for all children
to be able to access and share information (Article 13), exercise freedom of
thought, conscience and religion whilst nevertheless being protected from
radical and false information (Article 14), and meet and join groups, whilst
also respecting the rights, freedoms and reputations of others (Article 15). Under
Article 5, families are responsible for directing and guiding
their children to learn to use their rights properly. By forcing the parents to provide
consent for teens’ access internet services, not only is the GDPR restricting
parents’ rights, it is also taking the onus off government and industry to
provide services fully respectful of children’s rights, and forcing parents to
make the analysis when few would claim to have either the time or the
knowledge? Surely the aim should instead be to empower parents who are
primarily responsible for empowering and supporting their children.
1.
Empowering our children, enhancing
their development
What scientific research will
underpin national governments’ decisions to raise the age for requiring parental
consent beyond 13? How can they make a single age mandatory when every child
and every family is different? Research offers some guidance that is seemingly
being neglected so far in the GDPR debate. According to Piaget’s 4-stage
development theory[1] which
has basically remained uncontested for the past half century, at around age 12
children are usually already quite adept at reasoning as they enter the formal
operation stage and have built up enough knowledge and action-based learning to
make viable decisions. As a majority of children are online at age 8 nowadays, by
age 13 they will have benefited from family and school guidance for at least 5
years, and would know which reliable adults to turn to when in doubt. It seems
reasonable to consider that they would have the ground rules and experience in
internet use to make their own choices by this age. Imposing the need for parental consent would
be no more than paying lip service, or simply adding unnecessarily to the burden
of parents in their children’s teenage years.
2.
Autonomy, and its impact on
adulthood
To take another
approach, what is the impact of not giving teens sufficient autonomy as they
move into adulthood? A 2014 study shows that teens of age 13 and above who are
not given opportunities to practice self-directed, independent decision-making,
are more likely to give in to decisions from friends and partners and less likely
to be capable of establishing autonomy and closeness in relationships with
friends and romantic partners. In this longitudinal study, both impacts
persisted even eight years later[2]. Research published in 2015 indicates that the
level of autonomy a child has at age 13 is a predictor of both the quality of
future relationships and of a person’s ability to manage autonomy and
relatedness challenges across different social domains[3].
Both studies show that freedom in accessing information of their choice is an
important early step, especially in a field as important to most young people
as internet services. Moreover, depending on the EU country, young people can
legally enter sexual relationships at age 14, take on temp work at age 15, and drive
motorized cycles at age 15[4].
3.
Children, the heart of the matter
Children today live in digital-rich environments from
a very early age. For all children, especially those from less-privileged
families[5],
internet offers an open window to the world and to broad-ranging opportunities.
Research informs us that the more opportunities children benefit from, the
greater the level of resilience they develop to avoid harm from risks[6].
Today 80% of European citizens use internet regularly (95% in Cyprus,
Luxembourg and Sweden)[7] and,
on average, 83% of the population in the EU-28 have broadband access at home[8].
In 2014, 68% of young people (aged 9–16 years) used social network sites, and
mainly accessed them through smartphones. This indicates that a majority of
parents or care-givers have opted for, or at least accepted, the flexibility
that smartphones offer over the added monitoring possibilities of the home
broadband connection. Despite increasing awareness and a constantly growing
range of technical tools that can assist the monitoring of children’s online
activities, few families use them. In the UK Ofcom report (2016), 89% of
parents state that they trust their 12 to 15-year old children to use the internet
safely and 69% consider their children know more about the internet than they
do. The UK government’s ‘Active choice’ initiative shows the futility of
applying regulations families don’t want, with almost 90% of parents getting
rid of mobile phone filters when they can[9]. Are parents sufficiently enlightened to want
their children need to benefit fully from online opportunities to build their
resilience in an increasingly technology impregnated world, and foresighted
enough to want their children to become technology-adept in order to increase
their chances on the labour market? Perhaps it is simply a matter of knowing that
confidence builds trust.
4.
Digital citizenship and societal
debate
Article 8 of the GDPR could
bring about a far-reaching effect and, pending parental consent which may not
always be forthcoming, force teens who have been building their profiles,
YouTube channels, vlogs or even product lines over the past one or two years to
have to delete their work. Politicians and educators alike have been vaunting
the value of public consultation in the quest to build digital citizenship, but
where is the public debate on the GDPR? More pertinently, how can we ensure
that young people from all walks of life can participate in any public
consultation when the required consent may depend on the cultural and religious
beliefs of their parents? Schools, especially in today’s cultural-melting-pot
societies, are one of the few available means of promoting democracy by
supporting children and young people to build shared values and culture, and
online technology is proving invaluable in helping them develop their digital
citizenship skills. In school classes where not all parents provide consent for
internet access, even for schoolwork, will teachers need to deprive these pupils
of important opportunities, or will they have to deprive the majority so as not
to discriminate against the few? At the
national level, what will be the impact if one Greek or English or French
speaking country chooses a different “age of consent” than another country with
the same ‘native’ language and hence using the same platforms? In the current
state of societal unrest, it seems more important than ever that the European
Union reinforces shared policies and harmonization, yet differing national
opinions on the Article 8 debate could further push us into a patchwork of
differing rights and freedoms for Europe’s future citizens.
5. Pitfalls of age verification – technically speaking
Lastly, but certainly
not least, how will age-dependent legislation be implemented? A rapid tour of
agencies specialized in age verification shows that the only sure method of age
verification today is the cross-matching of private data across websites and
services. But as the collection of personal data of minors is unauthorized
anyway, isn’t this just another example of bureaucratic hypocrisy? Wouldn’t
that energy be better spent by ensuring that the public, private and civil
sectors implement all necessary measures to protect every citizen from the
illegal collection and exchange of personal data, and to inform them of their
rights and paths of recourse when these are breached. Young people have grown
up with technology and in a majority of cases better understand how to protect
their privacy and their online life than adults.
The implementation of
the GDPR will reinforce the rights of citizens in a number of ways. We wish to
underline the importance of involving children and parents, amongst the main beneficiaries
to have their say in the debate. To this end we have opened a discussion page
at https://www.facebook.com/GDPRhaveyoursay/, and engaged almost 500 persons in
just 2 days. We request that the European Union opens a public debate to raise
awareness of the impact of data protection in the lives of all citizens, and
encourage their reflection and input in the months to come.
Janice Richardson
Expert and advisor on literacy,
rights and democracy,
Luxembourg, March 2017
[1] Piaget, J. (1977). The
role of action in the development of thinking. In Knowledge and
development. Springer US.
[2] Nauert, R, (24 October 2014). Parenting Style Impacts Teen Autonomy, Relationships. PsychCentral https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/10/24/parenting-style-influences-teen-autonomy-relationships/76535.html
[3] Oudekerk, B. A., Allen, J. P., Hessel, E. T. and Molloy, L. E. (2015), The Cascading Development of Autonomy and
Relatedness from Adolescence to Adulthood. Child Dev, 86: 472–485.
doi:10.1111/cdev.12313
[5] Byrne, J., Kardefelt-Winther, D.,
Livingstone, S., Stoilova, M. (2016). Global
Kids Online Research Synthesis, 2015-2016. UNICEF Office of Research
Innocenti and LSE, London.
[6] Livingstone , S.,
Mascheroni, G., et al (2014). Children’s
online risks and opportunities: Comparative findings from EU Kids Online and
Net Children Go Mobile. LSE, London.
[8] Eurostat (2016). http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Digital_economy_and_society_statistics_-_households_and_individuals#Internet_access
[9] Ofcom (Nov. 2016). Children
and parents: media use and attitudes report. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/
No comments:
Post a Comment