Common Sense Media – Protecting Kids’ Privacy

Common Sense Media (CSM) is an advocacy group that I’ve noted a number of times on this blog. The group promotes media education rather than censorship and hands-on parent connections with their children’s media lives. President Obama mentioned CSM in his presidential campaign, lauding the organization’s “sanity not censorship” mission.

Currently Common Sense Media is focusing on privacy and kids with its Protect Our Privacy – Protect Our Kids campaign. The six goals of this effort, to which I’ve added a bit of additional explanation, include:

1. Stop tracking kids (using cookies and other means to get information about them for advertisers).
2. Turn-on privacy settings as the industry standard. Thus kids can opt out of privacy settings rather than having to take steps to turn them on.
3. Post privacy statements that are clear, well written on all sites.
4. Educate parents, teachers, and kids about protecting privacy.
5. Encourage industry and the corporate world to protect kids and families.
6. Support the updating of government policies (and laws?) for the 21st century.

Visit the Common Sense Media site to sign up for some of the mailing lists and encourage your children’s teachers to access the wealth of information for educators.