Your kids’ personal information and privacy are valuable — to you, to them, and to marketers. Fortunately, there are ways you can safeguard that privacy when your kids are online.
-Check out sites your kids visit, and see what kind of information the sites ask for or allow kids to post.
-Talk to your child about the risks and benefits of disclosing certain information, especially in a public forum.
-Take a look at the privacy policy, which should say what the site does with the information it collects. Then you can decide how you feel about it.
-Ask questions. If you’re not clear on a site’s practices or policies, ask about them.
-Be selective with your permission. In many cases, websites need your okay before they’re allowed to collect personal information from your kids.
-Know your rights. For example, as a parent, you have the right to have a site delete any personal information it has about your child.
-Report a website. If you think a site has collected or disclosed information from your kids or marketed to them in a way that violates the law, report it to the FTC.
