Teenage privacy issues: Battlefield of Tomorrow

by Michael Orfanos

Thodoris (age 12) and Charalambos (age 7), are the names of my neighbour’s kids. They both have GPS mobile phones («smartphones») and unrestricted internet acces to play online games. Thodoris-the older- even has his own Facebook page. Stay tuned to http://www.naro.gr/ειδησεις/επιστήμη.html. In addition, Thodoris is member of Foursquare and loves to use his phone to play online games, exchange Twitter messages with his friends and downloading songs, wallpapers etc. This means that Thodoris have also used his parent’s credit card-most probably with his father’s consent but without his father’s check and approval of the sites that his son gave his credit card data to. At an age, where their parents are still escorting them to school, to basketball practices or to classmate parties-fearing for their security- Thodoris and Charalambos already have their own personal data published on the internet, namely: name, home address, school, telephone, email account / password and credit card number.

A medical paper in 2009 from the University of California, revealed that teens are more susceptible than adults to online advertising and take greater risks in terms of publishing their personal information data online. Why? Because the prefrontal cortext, the part of the brain that is responsible for categorizing an action as planned ( it is OK to do it) and rational (not OK to do it), isnt’t really fully developed until the 30’s, thus it is in no position to operate correctly when a person is adolescent.

It is hypocrisy- at least -for every government to issue laws to protect the children from the internet & social media, and when these children become teenagers (but not adults), these rules cease to exist! Adolescents are internet and social media fanatics thus the companies and marketing agencies love them. They are more prone to risk their personal data publishing on the Web in order to play online games or participate in social networks.

During the past month, revelations that Apple and Google may logged the location of its users, brough the companies under fire and severe public criticism. Foursquare and Gowalla (two of the most popular location social media) relay heavily (if not exclusively), on shopping malls and companies who are interested in finding out the real-time location of their prospect customers, and push local coupons and retail suggestions to them. Foursquare and Gowalla state that they dont track users’ movements constantly, but only via voluntary check-ins. However, there is a moral issue, since companies and shopping malls by learning the location of their prospect customers, they can effectively direct them to their stores and indulge them to shopping by offering them incentives (coupons etc).

In addition to all the above, Sony is currently under fire for suspending the operation of PlayStation Network, after finding out that its system had been hacked and personnal data of its 77 million users worldwide had been stolen, revealing the existence of giant «black holes» into Sony’s security system.

What should we do then? Well, a parent must first of all, confront his kid and engage in a lengthly conversation with him/her regarding the dangers of social networks. Next, the parent could explore with his kid the social networds that his kid is interested in becoming user in order to sign-in together and show him/her the dangers from sharing their personal information on the web. Determine together how much (of your personnal information) you want to share!

Michael Orfanos is Marketing Manager and SEO expert for naro.gr