Data privacy is a key tenet that we seem to have advanced with in some areas and not in others, though enshrined in GDPR law since 2018. When the subjects are children the issue becomes – rightly so – centre stage. Instagram, owned by Facebook, is being investigated by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner over its management of the personal data of children on the platform which could result in a large fine. The issue has been that some children have set up business accounts which display personal email and telephone numbers, and also, according to the BBC article this information is “in the HTML source code of web pages accessed when using Instagram on a computer, meaning that it could be “scraped” by hackers.” When in May 2019 hackers were alleged to have stolen contact details from 49 million users, stored in an unguarded database in India the topic gained much attention. With the spotlight on Social Media, reported here on numerous occasions, as parents we should take steps to limit and manage what our children are doing online and discuss this with them. It is better to have an uncomfortable conversation than expose them to cyberbullies and much more.
