The FCC wants to help protect kids’ privacy

As a parent, I see how frequently kids are online: at home, at school, and in between.  As a computer network and security engineer, I know how often this means they may be exposing their personal information and online activity to the tracking and profiling algorithms of websites and ad networks. I wish my kids had stronger privacy protections across the internet.  And I am doing my best to teach my kids how to make smart, safe choices about the sites they visit and what they share, and to consider how their information may be used by those sites.

But no matter what choices my kids and my family make about online sites and services to use and what to share, the companies that we subscribe to for broadband internet service can collect an enormity of personal information from our online activity and the contents of our network traffic.  I would like to make choices about how our broadband providers use and share our information. However, like most people, our choices of broadband providers are limited to just a few. We can’t compare multitudes of providers or easily switch between providers.

{mosads}The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is working to give consumers exactly these kinds of choices and control over personal information and privacy for broadband internet use. The FCC has proposed new privacy rules that require broadband providers to notify customers about what information may be collected, and to provide choices for how this information can be used and shared.

These protections and choices are important for all of us, but especially so for children. Kids and teens’ privacy is particularly at risk online. They are prone to sharing information without thinking, and they are very receptive to advertising. Moreover, with increased use of technology in education, many children are required to use the school’s internet connection during class, and are encouraged to use the internet for homework and projects. As such, it is important that these protections exist not just at home but also at schools and libraries. Our children should be able to explore and learn online without unknown and unwanted tracking and profiling by the network itself.

I’ve seen the argument that because of increasing use of encryption for internet traffic, broadband privacy rules are not necessary. Although the use of encryption is increasing rapidly, broadband providers can still extract a lot of information from encrypted connections, and as reported in a recent study by Upturn, “pervasive encryption on the internet is still a long way off”. Encrypted https connections provide essential privacy protections, but still expose what sites our kids visit, when, and for how long. It’s true that the majority of today’s internet traffic is encrypted, but the traffic volume is dominated by streaming video, and measuring encryption rates this way does not accurately reflect the privacy exposure for what is left unencrypted. Viewing a single unencrypted web page can reveal a lot of information in a small amount of data. As reported by Upturn, over 85% of the top 50 Alexa sites for health, news and shopping do not fully support encrypted browsing by default. I’ve done my own measurements of popular kids sites, and the results are no better. About 85% of the Alexa top 500 Kids and Teens sites also do not support encrypted browsing by default.

Considering how much time kids spend online, in and out of school, and how they are more vulnerable to privacy exposure online, they need stronger rules protecting their privacy. The FCC’s proposal — to increase my knowledge and control over what what broadband providers do with my and my kids’ information — is an essential step forward that I wholeheartedly support. We all deserve the opportunity to make informed choices to protect the privacy of our families.

Tony Porterfield is a parent and computer network and security expert.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.