STEINBERG GALLEYSPROOFS2 4/5/2017 3:04 PM
2017] CHILDREN’S PRIVACY 843
community organizations, and peer groups to obtain permission before sharing
their children’s picture online.
14
Similarly, if a company negligently or
purposefully discloses a child’s personal information in a public arena, parents
call on the harm to be remedied.
15
Parents also play a supervisory role in their
child’s Internet use, often by setting limits on their child’s access to the Internet
and by discussing online safety threats such as cyber-bullying and sexting.
16
Indeed, parents are seemingly the natural protector of their child’s digital
identity.
However, parents are not always protectors; their disclosures online may
harm their children, whether intentionally or not.
17
A parent’s own decision to
share a child’s personal information online is a potential source of harm that has
gone largely unaddressed.
18
Children not only have interests in protecting
negative information about themselves on their parent’s newsfeed, but also may
not agree with a parent’s decision to share any personal information—negative
the age of 13); The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (2012)
(protecting children’s educational records from disclosure to third parties); Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA), Pub. L. No. 104-191, 110 Stat. 1936 (1996) (codified as amended in
scattered sections of 18 U.S.C., 26 U.S.C., 29 U.S.C., and 42 U.S.C.).
14
See, e.g., Erika Elmuts, Please Stop Posting Pictures of My Child on Facebook, CONSCIOUS PARENTS,
http://www.consciousparents.org/stop-posting-pictures-of-my-child-online-please (last visited Sept. 12, 2016).
Most schools, community organizations, and government agencies also expect to obtain parental consent before
sharing children’s pictures and information online. See, e.g., Aspen Chase Apartments SPLASH 2015
Registration, YMCA, http://www.annarborymca.org/sites/default/files/pdf/SPLASHAspen.pdf (last visited Jan.
26, 2016) (form for publication of child’s picture); Student Photo Release Form, N.J. DEP’T EDUC.,
http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/idconsent/form.pdf (last visited Jan. 26, 2016) (consent form to post
information to school website).
15
Press Release, Fed. Trade Comm’n, Operators of Online “Virtual Worlds” to Pay $3 Million to Settle
FTC Charges that They Illegally Collected and Disclosed Children’s Personal Information (May 12, 2001),
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/05/operators-online-virtual-worlds-pay-3-million-settle-
ftc-charges.
16
Mary Madden et al., Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy, PEW RES. CTR. (Nov. 20, 2012),
http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/11/20/parents-teens-and-online-privacy/. Many children engage in online
activities that invite third-party privacy breaches, online bullying, sexual contact, and other dangerous scenarios.
See Jeana Lee Tahnk, Is Your Teen Engaged in Risky Behavior Online?, P
ARENTING.COM, http://www.parenting.
com/blogs/children-and-technology-blog/jeana-lee-tahnk/your-teen-engaged-risky-behavior-online (last visited
Jan. 19, 2017). In the usual course, parents are called upon to provide guidance to children to minimize the risks
these children face and are often encouraged to set boundaries to limit their children’s online disclosures. Id.
However, the threat of how parents share information about their children online is rarely the subject of similar
discourse.
17
Jenn Supple Bartels, Parents’ Growing Pains on Social Media: Modeling Authenticity, 1 CHARACTER
AND
. . . SOC. MEDIA 51, 63 (2015), http://digitalud.dbq.edu/ojs/character/article/view/5/6 (discussing an
incident involving a mother accused of cyberbullying her daughter to teach her a lesson about cyberbullying).
18
Benjamin Shmueli & Ayelet Blecher-Prigat, Privacy for Children, 42 COLUM. HUM. RTS. L. REV. 759
(2011).