SafeKids.com

The Federal Trade Commission has issued some “Frequently Asked Questions” about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) based on amended rules that go into effect on July 1st. Click here to see the FAQ.

“The primary goal of COPPA,” wrote the FTC in the FAQ, “is to place parents in control over what information is collected from their young children (under 13) online.”

The Rule, according to the agency, “applies to operators of commercial Web sites and online services (including mobile apps) directed to children under 13 that collect, use, or disclose personal information from children, and operators of general audience Web sites or online services with actual knowledge that they are collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13.”

The document covers issues including COPPA enforcement, privacy policies and notifications, geolocation data, verifiable parental consent and COPPA in schools.

Operators covered by the Rule must:

• Post a clear and comprehensive online privacy policy describing their information practices for personal information collected online from children;
•  Provide direct notice to parents and obtain verifiable parental consent, with limited exceptions, before collecting personal information online from children;
•  Give parents the choice of consenting to the operator’s collection and internal use of a child’s information, but prohibiting the operator from disclosing that information to third parties (unless disclosure is integral to the site or service, in which case, this must be made clear to parents);
• Provide parents access to their child’s personal information to review and/or have the information deleted;
• Give parents the opportunity to prevent further use or online collection of a child’s personal information;
• Maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of information they collect from children, including by taking reasonable steps to release such information only to parties capable of maintaining its confidentiality and security; and
• Retain personal information collected online from a child for only as long as is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected and delete the information using reasonable measures to protect against its unauthorized access or use.

(Source: Federal Trade Commission)

COPPA Not a panacea

It’s important for parents to understand that COPPA is about keeping children from providing personally identifiable information to commercial sites, but not about online safety. COPPA compliance in no way means that the site is safe or appropriate for young children.

Also, age determination is based on what date of birth the user enters. If children lie about their, the sites is not responsible to verify their age nor is there any magic technology that can determine a users actual age.

Sites, apps and services that are aimed at a general audience are not required to ask people their age so parents should not be lurred into a false sense of security that their children are “protected” in all situations.

Parents help kids lie about their age

One consequence of COPPA is that some sites, including Facebook and many other social networking services, ban children under 13. Yet many children get on them anyway. This isn’t necessarily dangerous but does violate the intention of COPPA.

A study conducted in 2011 found that millions of children under 13 access Facebook by entering in a false date of birth, many with help from their parents.  Nearby a fifth (19 percent) of the parents of 10-year-olds acknowledged that their child was on Facebook. About a third (32 percent) of parents of 11-year-olds knew their kid was on it. And the same was true for more than half (55 percent) of parents of 12-year-olds. Each of these kids had to lie to get an account.

For kids who were under 13 at the time they signed up, 68 percent of the parents “indicated that they helped their child create the account.” Among 10-year-olds on Facebook, a whopping 95 percent of parents were aware their kids were using the service and 78 percent helped create the account.

Since many under-13 children are on sites like Facebook, it’s important for parents to talk with their kids about appropriate use of these services, even if they are under the required age. That isn’t to suggest that we should condone kids lying about their age, but we need to be realistic and do what we can to be sure that kids understand how to protect their own privacy and reputations when using these services.

Also see:

Unintended Consequences of FTC’s New COPPA Children’s Online Privacy Rules

Zuckerberg Was Right: Why Facebook Should Welcome Kids Under 13

Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions (from the FTC)

LAPD is one of the agencies that uses Nixle to send alerts

Google and Nixle are working together to help people better respond to emergency situations in their communities and schools.

Emergency alerts, about crimes in progress, lock-downs, natural disasters, missing children and other events will now show up when people do relevant searches on Google web search, maps and Google Now:

• Google Search: Search a location or keyword triggering an active Nixle alert, the alert will be visible at the top of search results with the ablity to click for more information.
• Google Maps: Search a location on Google Maps and the active Nixle alert will be pinned to that geography.
• Google Now: Android phones within the affected community will display the Nixle alert directly on the phone through Google Now

(Source Nixle)

San Francisco-based Nixle is a public safety communications platform used by more than 6,500 public service agencies including police, fire departments and emergency management services.  The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (where I serve as a board member) uses Nixle for missing children alerts as a supplement to its Amber alerts.

Schools too

Nixle also works with schools, according to spokesperson Jim Gatta, who use the service to notify parents and other community members on a wide range of issues from day-to-day event notifications to school lock-downs  Nixle also provides schools and police departments with anonymous reporting systems for crimes, bullying or potential self-harm.

(Disclosure: I’m co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Google).

In the wake of Facebook’s new Home phone software, Larry Magid uses his CBS News/CNET Tech Talk segment, Larry Magid to explore Internet addiction with “Mediatrician” Dr. Michael Rich.

For me, including a link to the entire Michael Rich interview, see Facebook ‘phone’ could be one more distraction in a world full of them.

by Bruno Galera
Guest blogger & Dell employee

(Editors note: The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily of SafeKids.com. For a slightly different perspective on parental controls, see Internet filters have their place, but not for all kids)

Bruno Galera

There are some parents out there that are just as Internet and computer-savvy as the next person, but then there are the rest of us who might feel that our children know more about our own devices and how to work them, than we do.

If you relate more to the latter, you probably found that you’re not very comfortable with your child surfing the net openly, freely creating social profiles, gaming online, or, maybe you’re not comfortable with any of it because of how foreign it is to you.  Whether you feel that you know what kinds of tasks your children are able to perform online or not, there are safety measures that should be implemented either way.

Software Protection

Though communication is probably the most conducive move in monitoring your child’s everyday activities there are other measures that, in this day in age, are necessities when talking about child safety online.  Threats can present themselves even when they are not being searched out and these can sometimes be the most dangerous.

Nowadays you can’t even buy a computer without being presented with several online protection options that come standard with the set up. But now there are options that are extremely advanced and so explicit that some of the systems are furnished specifically with your child and families’ safety in mind.

Author Jesse Schwarz reminds us that Internet service providers allow for control over some content, but there are also certain parental control options that we will be smart to utilize in conjunction.  For example, the computers with Windows 8 have an operating system from Microsoft that has the ability to set up parental controls specifically for Internet browsing.  Click here for Jesse’s hands-on steps for using these controls.

Also, Windows 8 makes it possible to set up individual user accounts that can each be monitored very closely. With this function, every member in the family can have his or her own account while the master account is able to monitor the others in as much or as little depth as deemed necessary.

Activity reports will be reported that will permit monitoring or even eliminating certain activities online. With the “family safety” option (found in your Windows 8 user account set up) you can modify Internet activity by controlling website access, setting time limits for computer use, blocking unwanted sites or even specifying the sites that your children are allowed to access.

Obviously the age of your child will determine how closely they are monitored, but understanding these options will ultimately reduce the risks that your child faces everyday online. These computers will also allow you to control files that are downloaded.

Using the “Block File Downloads” option will help prevent downloading that doesn’t meet your approval. There are also many other options out there that can filter emails, instant messaging, and video material based on unknown addresses, descriptive text, words or phrases, and tags.

Aside from the risk of stumbling onto an unwanted site, there are also the constant security threats that lie in wait and are undetectable until they have already gotten what they came for. Windows 8 offers some of the most recent groundbreaking security improvements specifically catered to this type of needed protection.

Communication is Key

David Miles, European director of the Family and Online Safety Institute (FOSI) states that “the nature of the threats [online] are changing…two years ago we were dealing with a search-oriented culture that was adult dominated…now we are in a world of user-generated content, it’s no longer an adult-only environment.”

What we can gather from this, is that no matter how much control we may feel we have or want over our children with respect to the Internet, we can’t put a stop to it – unless, of course, we are willing to renounce all comforts of modern life and disconnect completely. Since the likelihood of that happening is slim to none, I would suggest taking alternative measures.

First, set up the system protection options mentioned above. Then, buckle down and set aside all feelings of being threatened by your child’s knowledge of technology and get prepared to learn something from them. If you can do this, it can open up lines of communication that may have been blocking your understanding of their involvement online in the first place.

Carrie Longton, co-founder of Mumsnet, suggests having your child walk you through setting up an online profile or showing you how to surf the web, and, most importantly, let the humiliation flow!  Children don’t like to feel threatened by their parents control tactics any more than parents enjoy implementing them. In this environment, trust can be built while you let them teach you something.  It’s a win, win.

If you feel inadequate in your knowledge of technology, now is the time to learn. Keep the communication open and don’t forget to utilize the user friendly options available that come standard with computers like the all-in-one. With operating systems like Windows 8, you can rest assured that your family will be safer online than ever before.

How do you keep your kids safe online? Share your ideas and solutions below.

Bruno Galera works for Dell and has a passion for technology. When he’s not reading about the latest industry trends, you can find him cooking, reading, cheering on his favorite football team or at a museum enjoying contemporary art and photography.

Cover story looks at theimpact of digital technology on young child development

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend The Atlantic article, The Touch-Screen Generation by Hanna Rosin.  Rosin presents an in-depth and somewhat reassuring look at the way very young children use tablets, pointing out that toddlers don’t have to be taught how to use an iPad. “The connection is obvious,” she writes.

While recognizing that excessive use of technology ”is a real problem,” she largely debunks the notion that technology is necessarily harmful or addictive for young children “If your child shows signs of having an addictive personality, you will probably know it,” she said. She also calls into question the American Academy of Pediatrics updated policy about “screen time” where it applies the same recommendation for interactive technology that it advises for passive TV, recommending that it be avoided for children under 2. But even children’s TV, said Rosin, has evolved so that some shows now contain pauses so that kids can react and interact.

As with most things, it strikes me as a matter of balance. A steady diet of technology (or for that matter, books, baseball or any other single activity) is almost certainly not a good thing, but moderate use of technology — including tablets for toddlers — has not proven to be harmful.  As with everything, parental involvement with young children remains a remedy against a lot of maladies and that includes parents using the technology with their children — not using it as an electronic babysitter.

Here’s a PBS NewsHour interview with Rosin. Also check out the video embedded in The Atlantic article.

Watch Tech-Savvy Toddlers Go for Tablets Over Teddy Bears on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

By Katie Johnson
Awareity
Guest blogger

Katie Johnson

The discussion on school safety is being held at every school and community across the Nation.  The end goal is the same, ensuring the safety of every young child and staff member within the school.  But, how we get there is up for debate.

One of the most common solutions being offered by many is to implement armed security guards or provide weapons to teachers/staff – after all as the NRA said, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

However, even good guys with guns can sometimes inadvertently lead to dangerous situations as we have seen recently in the news:

School Employee Shot During Gun Training:

SRO Accidentally Fires Gun at NY High School:

Security Guard Forgets Gun in School Bathroom

Bringing more guns into schools also creates added liability and potentially higher insurance costs for schools.  Your school does not want to face a lawsuit after one of the teacher’s guns accidentally discharges and wounds a staff member or student!  You may want to review this recent article from Risk and Insurance Magazine:

If schools do decide to implement armed guards or staff at schools, it is absolutely critical these staff members are trained extensively on gun safety and procedures are implemented to help ensure accidents like those above do not occur.

Instead of giving weapons to staff in part of the plan of how to REACT when an armed intruder enters the building, what if schools instead focus (their plans and funding) on ways to PREVENT an intruder from even coming to the school in the first place.

Schools and communities need to implement prevention strategies to identify potentially troubled or at-risk students so they can get in front of tragedy.  Identifying red flags and concerning behaviors prior to a student carrying through with an attack is critical.  As many have mentioned before and the Department of Education’s Safe School Initiative clearly revealed, students don’t just “snap” one day.  School attacks are pre-meditated and planned and over 80% of the time, someone else knows about it.  So, we need to provide that someone else with the tools to tell the right people what they know!  And, once that information is shared, schools need to have clearly defined policies and procedures for investigating the information, sharing necessary details with law enforcement, and effectively intervening with the student.

Katie Johnson is the Director of Client Services and Marketing for Awareity, a leading provider of risk management, incident reporting and prevention platforms.  To learn more visit www.awareity.com or www.tipsprevent.com.

by Larry Magid

We hear a lot about kids bullying* other kids and it is indeed a problem. But what about adults bullying other adults, or adults bullying kids?

True, bullying is a problem among youth. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2009,  28% of 12 through 18 year old kids were “bullied by traditional means at school” while 6% were “bullied by electronic means anywhere.” There are of course other studies with other statistics, but just about all agree that it’s a problem that affects a significant minority — but not most — of tweens and teens.

But it’s also a problem for a signification percentage of adults and there are, sadly, cases of adults bullying children.

Adult-on-Adult Bullying

A 2010 study commissioned by the Workplace Bullying Institute and conducted by Zogby International found that more than a third (35%) “have experienced bullying firsthand.” Other surveys differ but it’s pretty clear that millions of adults have experienced verbal abuse, offensive conduct and sabotage of their work, according to the Institute.

There is also plenty of bullying within families and couples. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a 2006 Harris poll, found that “approximately 33 million or 15% of all U.S. adults, admit that they were a victim of domestic violence.” Among all adults, 39% said they had experienced some type of abuse such as:

• Called bad names (31%)
• Pushing, slapping, choking or hitting (21%)
• Public humiliation (19%)
• Keeping away from friends or family (13%)
• Threatening your family (10%)
• Forcing you to have sexual intercourse without consent (9%)
  Source: Harris Interactive: Over Thirty Million Adults Claim to be Victims of Domestic Violence

Military bullying

Bullying is also a problem in the military. Dr. Rene Robichaux, the Army’s Social Work program manager was quoted by Army News Service that “hazing often occurs in ‘elite’ military units, and that much of it is psychological and directed at newcomers.” That article also pointed out that “Bullies can also be found higher up in the ranks. Although leaders are supposed to look out for the welfare of their Soldiers, they are sometimes the ones who do the bullying.” The armed services are actively engaged in anti-bullying campaigns.

Police Harassment

Police harassment is often a form of bullying and it can be adult-to-adult or adult-to-child. In 2010, according to the Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, there were 3,814 unique reports of police misconduct involving 4,966 sworn law enforcement officers. Of these, 25% involved excessive force and 10.4% were sexual misconduct. It’s important to note that fewer than 1% of police officers (992 for each 100,000 officers) were involved in this misconduct. It’s anecdotal and it doesn’t always constitute bullying, but I’ve heard many reports of teens — including my own son — being harassed or teased by police officers.

Politicians & pundits too

And don’t forget the bullies you see on TV, whether they be politicians making derogatory comments about their opponents, pundits making mean or caustic comments, or adults bullying each other in sitcoms and other shows. I expect politicians to conduct vigorous campaigns but why can’t they agree not to lie or degrade their opponents. For good and bad, public figures are role models and some are modeling bad behavior.

Adults bullying children

Have you ever been out in public — say at a grocery store or restaurant — and seen an adult being abusive to a child? I’ve seen parents yell at kids for no apparent reason. I’ve seen parents swat kids and I’ve seen plenty of cases where parents and other adults were just rude to kids. I experienced it myself when I was in school. I had a gym teacher who regularly harassed and belittled me and other kids who he thought were too slow, too fat or too gay. If you don’t believe me, buy a copy of Warren’s Words: Smart Commentary on Social Justice. It was written by my elementary, middle school and high school friend and schoolmate Warren Blumenfeld, who documented some of this from his perspective as a gay teenager who — at the time — hadn’t yet come out.

In a paper, Teachers Who Bully Students: A Hidden Trauma, Stuart Twemlow and colleagues found that 70.4% of teachers asked said that they knew of “isolated cases” of teachers bullying students. 17.6% said it happened frequently and 40.2% admitted to having bullied a student at least once. In fairness, this was a very small study with only 116 responses from teachers from seven urban U.S. elementary schools. I wouldn’t generalize this data to apply to all teachers but even if the percentages turn out to be much lower, it’s still a cause for concern.

*Definition of bullying

There are lots of ways to define bullying and not all experts agree with this definition, but the closest one that we have to an “official” definition comes from the Olweus Bullying Prevent Program that defines bullying as “aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time.”

Nancy Willard, founder of EmbraceCivility.org, defines student bullying as ”hurtful act or acts that have caused severe distress, and are pervasive or persistent, and have caused physical harm to the student or his or her property, or significant interference with the students’ educational opportunities.”

Other experts define bullying slightly differently but one thing is for sure. Before we point our fingers and lecture young people about bullying, we need to look at our own behavior and those of our fellow grownups.

by Larry Magid

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children helps protect kids from abduction and exploitation

I’ve been a board member at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) for several years and I’ve heard a lot of horrible stories about children who have been abducted or abused. Every story is tragic but the ones that turn my stomach the most are cases where trusted adults — be they teachers, clergy or even parents — abuse the very children they are supposed to be nurturing and protecting.  That was certainly the case when Penn State University assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, was convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse against boys over a period of years. In addition to his duties at Penn State, Sandusky ran a summer football camp for youth.

Unfortunately, acts of child sexual exploitation are all to familiar to the staff of the NCMEC, a Congressionally authorized non-profit organization that works with law enforcement, families and other professionals on issues related to missing and sexually exploited children.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  With better education, increased law enforcement and greater awareness its possible to better protect children in sporting programs, youth-serving organizations and everywhere else.

On March 19th and 20th, NCMEC is sponsoring a conference called Safe to Compete: Protecting Child Athletes from Sexual Abuse, where it will convene more than 50 youth-serving organizations, including the YMCA, Special Olympics, USA Swimming, USA Gymnastics,  and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to talk about the issue of preventing abuse of children in sports programs.

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children CEO John Ryan

In an interview (scroll down to listen to the podcast) NCMEC CEO John Ryan said “one of the deliverables of the summit will be to bring these leading national youth organizations to the Center and develop what we are calling sound practices so that parents can ask the right questions and that they can be assured that these organizations have the appropriate policies in place.” And when it comes to good practices, size doesn’t necessarily matter. “Some large organizations are not doing enough, some small organizations despite limited resources are doing more than one should expect. ”  He said that “there is no uniform code of behavior for youth serving organizations.”

Speakers at the conference will include Dr. Sharon W. Cooper, Developmental and Forensic Pediatrics, P.A., Sheldon Kennedy, Former NHL player and survivor of sexual abuse, Cal Ripken, Jr., founder of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation and MLB Hall of Fame Inductee and John Walsh, NCMEC co-founder and host of “America’s Most Wanted.’

Click below to listen to or read my full interview with John Ryan, CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Listen to podcast

Transcript of interview