Why It’s Important to Encourage Parents to Enroll in PRIVO PROTECT

By now, most parents of young children, tweens, and teens are painfully aware of the real-world risks that confront youth in digital environments. Harder to comprehend is that precious little progress has been made by technology companies who profit from consumer engagement to harness their sophisticated  technology to prevent children from accessing their age-restricted platforms, apps, and services.

As far back as 2011, a Consumer Reports study reported that 7.5 million children under age 13 were using Facebook. Fast forward to 2021, when TikTok reported suspending 7.2 million accounts for users suspected to be under their minimum age in just the first three quarters of the year. They aren’t alone; other major social media and tech companies regularly report similar actions.

At the same time, in the first three quarters of 2021, Facebook reportedly flagged 55.6 MILLION pieces of content as child nudity and sexual exploitation. YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat and others report removing combined millions of posts and images categorized as child abuse. And, exposure to sexual or violent content is only one of many risks children face when in digital environments that are not designed for them and do not afford them the protections mandated by laws that apply in most countries.

Yet, these companies continue to insist that it is too difficult for them to identify children for the purpose of implementing methods to police their own rules, to protect children. These are the very same, highly successful business enterprises who deploy advanced algorithms and technologies every day in order to drive innovation and support complex business processes.

This undeniable lack of progress is just one reason why PRIVO has launched PRIVO PROTECT and is presenting employers everywhere with access to engage employee parents in protecting their children. PRIVO has a twenty-year history in supporting minors’ digital privacy and has secured several patents to support the company’s new minors’ device registry.

As a PRIVACY PATRON, your company – and your HR team – have an extraordinary option to turn around twenty years of looking the other way at the expense of children. It is staggeringly simple and will take most parents about five minutes. By offering your employees who are parents a link to enroll in PRIVO PROTECT, you are facilitating a first step that will create a ripple effect toward minors’ safety worldwide. Parents who register will be asked to associate their child’s birthdate with the digital devices most often used by their child. They will then authorize PRIVO to put commercial enterprises on notice that the device is in use by a minor child. If a particular service has a minimum age in their Terms of Service that is OLDER than the child’s age when the device appears at the site, PRIVO will notify the service electronically that the child is not yet old enough to enter. If the child IS old enough to participate, the service will then be required to follow minors’ privacy regulations which may require them to notify a parent to request consent for the child’s participation or other protections which may apply.

Together, PRIVO PROTECT and parents will effectively deactivate the worldwide, fake ID system that allows children to navigate the digital world – unsupervised – by simply entering a false birthdate to access digital activities and services.

At the same time, PRIVO’s service will provide both parents and children with resources and guidance to learn together about the importance of digital health and safety, helping children to build skills for protecting themselves online in age-appropriate ways. Each of the protections are transparent to parents AND their children, to foster respect for minors’ privacy rights and encourage open communication.

Thank you in advance for your participation in PRIVO’s five minutes for kids, to create profound change in protecting children.