By Lynette Owens
Below is an excerpt from a guest for VentureBeat on April 8, 2014. The full post can be found @ http://ow.ly/vyAQU
From the moment our kids are born, a digital paper trail on them begins. It starts with a record of their birth, progresses to immunizations and growth charts, grades and school performance, and now includes information collected from websites, apps and beyond.
Data collection on kids is happening in places online and off, and it’s nearly impossible for parents to keep up with the current pace.
From playgrounds to PlayStations
In schools, student data collection is fueling the growth of an $8 billion educational technology software market thanks to the Common Core standards’ need for student testing and assessment.FERPA, the federal law designed to protect student data, should be enough to protect this newly gathered information. But it actually does little when it’s in the hands of non-educational institutions.
What should be of greater concern are some of the newer ways data is gathered through immersive entertainment experiences, such as motion-sensing games and amusement parks. The argument from data collectors: let us track lots of information on you, and we’ll give you a highly personalized experience. The price for fun? Your privacy.
Read the rest on VentureBeat @ http://ow.ly/vyAQU
And follow Lynette on Twitter @lynettetowens
Lynette Owens is Vice President of Global Consumer Education & Marketing at Trend Micro and Founder of the Internet Safety for Kids and Families program. With 25+ years in the tech industry, Lynette speaks and blogs regularly on how to help kids become great digital citizens. She works with communities and 1:1 school districts across the U.S. and around the world to support online safety, digital and media literacy and digital citizenship education. She is a board member of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, an advisory committee member of the Digital Wellness Lab, and serves on the advisory boards of INHOPE and U.S. Safer Internet Day.
Follow her on Twitter @lynettetowens.