Privacy thy name is………. child: understanding the responsibilities of parents to protect the privacy of children in the digital platforms

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

In the first week of February, 2025 a short audio-visual content showcasing an embarrassed, extremely traumatized child with his face under blankets became viral on Instagram. It essentially found its way in other social media platforms too. The audible contents and the accompanying texts suggested that the child apparently spent a little fortune for accessing online games. No parent of middle class family would be happy for such behavior of children. Parents of this child were neither!  they expressed their frustration and anger by publicly shaming the child by capturing the ‘scolding’s’, child’s crying face, attempts to hide under the blanket and (not to forget) images of other children who were visibly perplexed as whom to support. The issue became viral and attracted netizens attention. Many schooled the parents for such unethical exposure of the child. But, can the parents be really made liable for exposing an embarrassed child in such manner if we see this from various existing laws in India?

How a child becomes victim of over exposure by parents /lawful guardians?

Let me take you, my readers back to 2012, when Aishwarya Rai, former Miss World and a Bollywood celebrity was famously photographed trying to cover her infant daughter’s face by every mean. As a parent she had tirelessly tried to protect her daughter from paparazzi and social media entrepreneurs who attempt to make a fortune by showcasing the images of celebrities from different angels. Aishwarya’s daughter grew up to attract limelight and became subject-matter of content creators who started sharing fake news and even health-updates about her. The child was not exposed by her parents. But she continued to get exposed on different internet platforms without her or her parents’ consent.

In this case, clearly, the parents (who are her legal guardians) are not liable for her over exposure and potential harms of impersonation, privacy infringement, doxing, defamation, cyber stalking, subjecting her images for the purpose of online child sexual abuse materials etc.

But now consider the case of the young boy (mentioned above) who was shamed by his parents on social media handles for spending family fortune for online gaming. The facial image of the boy  is identifiable  and the exposure has been made by the parents/adult family members. The boy was visibly NOT CONSENTING for photographs.

In numbers of social media profiles, parents continue to upload the images and audio-visual contents of their children and India is no exception. But majority of the parents may not be aware that this very act may expose and over expose their children to different patterns of victimization. Interestingly parents of Gen Z, Gen Alpha and Gen Beta are aware of different kinds of online victimsiation, including patterns of online child sexual abuse materials. But they may not be able to accept the truth that they themselves can become tools for online victimization for their children. 

Bossing over the “consent” and privacy of the children

In general, parents are given the profile of “In-Charge” data principal under S.2j of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The Clause defines the data principal as individual to whom the personal data relates and where such individual is a child , includes the parents or lawful guardian of such a child and where the individual is a person with disability (whether adult or child), includes her lawful guardian, acting on her behalf. 

But not to forget, Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 or the Draft Digital personal Data Protection Rule, 2025 are not the only legal documents that are giving such “supremacy” for parents to decide about the ‘consent’ of the children to share their data including images (which carries vital personally identifiable data). Laws and statutes like Constitution of India, Indian Contract Act, Indian Penal Code, Indian Criminal Procedure Code, Indian Evidence Act (and now the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Adhiniyam,  Transfer of Property Act, Juvenile Justice Care and Protection Act and so many like this give the parents of minor children key responsibilities to handle their ‘consent’. Until the child turns 18, it is mandatory to accept consent of the parents as that of the child. But there is only one exception to this rule: in case the child is abused or the child feels threatened or uncomfortable due to the act of her/his parents /legal guardians, the court is bound to take note of the consent of the child to relocate her/him with different ‘guardian’.  We get to see this in some child custody cases and in cases of child sexual abuse. This is because the philosophy of child welfare is glaringly dominated over the demand for supremacy of parents over the opinions of children regarding their sense of comfort and security  through Juvenile Justice Care and Protection Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act in matrimonial dispute cases and in cases, cases of corporeal punishment of children, cases of willful negligence and traumatizing of children by abandoning them and/or by suppressing their basic needs of food , shelter and physical security   and in cases   of child sexual abuse cases.

Apparently we get to see execution of such ‘bossing over’ mentality of the parents in cases of choice of dresses and accessories, choice of schools, forcing the child to participate in the family functions where he/she is not feeling comfortable and so on. But this bossy decision making nature of the parents (which in India and in many other jurisdictions are accepted as a social norm) may not play good for the safety and security of the children always.

Why privacy of child matters

Imagine when the little child photographed adorned in dresses and accessories chosen by the parents gets bullied on Instagram  by her/his peers shaming the appearance and the dresses that may not suit their  taste! Imagine when the child is targeted in real life as the child of parents who are YouTube controversy creators! Imagine if the child is constantly targeted by unknown people because his/her parents are social media influencers and use him/her as example for best parenting tips….

One day the parents will leave internet because of their age, fragile cognitive power or because of their wish to withdraw from the internet. But the contents created with their children (without even considering for their consent) will remain floated on internet. Research , experience and experiments have proved that contents which may have attracted high rate of views, discussions , do not ‘evaporate’ even if the original content creator pulls down the content from their database. There are many ways to download, re-share, forward and recreate the old contents. Minor children, their images and audio visual recordings along with their parents therefore may remain on the internet not only during the lifetime of the ‘children’, but also during the life time of the next generation of such ‘children’. The child in question will never be able to enjoy the right be left alone . his/her medical conditions, mental health conditions, school life, exam records, likes and dislikes will be matters of public affair and the no third party, but his/her own parents will be solely responsible for such privacy infringement of the child.

Can the child sue the parents for privacy infringement in digital platform?

The answer is YES. Even if the parents are in-charge data principal of the children, if the acts of the parents infringe the privacy of the children or exposes the children to grave threat, children can take legal action against their own parents. Not to forget, Protection of children from sexual offences Act, 2013 makes the scope of the Act wide enough to include “whoever” as the perpetrator if the same has violated the laws including creating/distributing etc., of child porn materials. S.67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) also sings the same song. This will be possible if the child takes the complaint to the police, judicial magistrate or the Child Welfare Committee.  Not to forget, the Constitution and child welfare centric laws make the State a ‘guardian’ when the natural/legal guardian of the child exposes him/her to dangerous situation which may cause physical and mental trauma.  A careful reading of the Juvenile Justice Care and Protection Act along with Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita may also suggest that children can access justice against their own parents if the latter plays crucial role in violating the child’s basic rights including privacy.

The denouement

While parents can have the right to decide for the best interest of the child, the decision may not always fetch best results. Awareness is growing for safer internet for children and adults. But adults must be responsible enough to create safe and healthy examples for children.

Put yourself in the place of the child and think how he/she would be treated for his/her digital presence.

Acknowledge the future risks of online harms even if you are a cyber-security guru.

Take timely action to protect the privacy of the child.

Prepare the child for the BIG BAD world like a pro to have sigma energy.

Please don't violate the copyright of the blog. Please cite it as Halder Debarati (2025) Privacy thy name is………. child: understanding the responsibilities of parents to protect the privacy of children in the digital platforms. . Published in https://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/2025/02/privacy-thy-name-is-child-understanding.html on February 23, 2025

Women, be careful when you join 'groups' in Facebook

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of day’s back I came through a research which showed that women are more attracted to social networking through popular social media like the Facebook or Twitter than men (See http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/women-more-attracted-facebook-twitter-men-study-105041750.html). Being a woman myself, I cannot wholeheartedly agree with this research as I have seen many men *also* have taken likings for social networking too. But this research made it once again crystal clear: women are vulnerable in the net. In this era of social media, women do not click in the Facebook or Twitter just as a leisure activity only. I see these Medias as mines of informations; and I am sure many women like me visit these ‘mines’ for gathering useful informations, which are essential for home maintenance, baby care to safe e-banking, online shopping, part time or full time jobs from home etc. Where do we find these mines? Anywhere and everywhere if you have your 6^th sense ready for gaining the informations. I look specifically for the ‘groups’ and ‘trending topics’ for gathering informations, which in very sophisticated term, can also be called as ‘data mining’.

          But women of my genre, beware!

All is not safe when you switch on your Facebook account with your personal informations and albums open to your friends. In a ‘group,’ in the Facebook, there are numbers of privacy issues which may bother members, especially women members; let me detail them here:

1.     If one member tags you or your photo, your well protected informations, status updates and even the entire album can be pulled out from your profile. Do not feel secured if you have made your informations available for your friends and not for the public. You may never know, but your friend’s friends can also view your ‘secrets’ meant only for your friends.

2.    A group expands by snow balling its members through existing members. So if any one of the members mistakenly adds any unwanted individual, the security of the other members may be jeopardized.

3.    You may get introduced to many likeminded members in a group, who may be interested in knowing you more closely. But be careful. Once an individual sends a friend’s request, he/she may be able to see the status updates and the new addings to the album if they are not ‘protected’; this is possible even when the ‘friend’s request’ is in the ‘pending’ status. Hence if you do not wish to share anything with him/her, immediately close your door to him/her.

4.    Remember if this is not a closed group, your contributions to the group may be visible in  the world wide web if someone searches for your name.

These are but some of my own findings from my own experiences in the Facebook. But women, don’t withdraw yourself. There are more ‘safety pins’ available for protecting the loop holes.

Ø Facebook offers few types of friend’s category, namely; acquaintances, friends and close friends. It falls upon you to categorize your ‘friends’ for a better networking.

Ø When it is an open group, be careful to choose your words for contribution.

Ø Be watchful; if you are tagged without your permission, ‘de-tag’ yourself .

Ø Take immediate decision regarding friend’s requests. Pending requests may add more privacy risks.

Ø If you are a member in a group which allows snow balling, be sure to add known and reliable friends. This is will make you a safety valve in your own group.

At the end, let your friends be aware of the positive side of social networking. Being a social species,  no human beings are fallible. But remember, we are humans and a little bit of awareness would definitely make our lives in the well webbed world wonderful.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2012), “Women, be careful when you join groups in Facebook”, 6^th September,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

What Every Woman Should Know About Orkut

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
 

In the late 2006 when I joined Orkut on the pursuance of a very close friend of mine, I found this particular site as an open gallery to show case pictures, and friend’s comments. Nonetheless, I found out very good  “communities” to discuss about varieties of affairs too. But in 2006 /7 the security of the data fed in the social networking sites was very poor compared to today’s security measures taken by these Social networking sites. As such, I had many “visitors” who wanted to befriend me in weird types. No doubt, those who have been using Orkut since then must have experienced similar things. But the irony is, in 2011 also, women have to experience similar  bad encounters in Orkut. Nonetheless, Orkut has developed quite a few security measures for the users, but many of the users may remain oblivious of them. Hence, when in Orkut, check the followings:

1. To protect your wall from being viewed by others including your friends, use the new version of Orkut. You may notice a “lock” sign after each post that is made by you. That is the privacy sign. Once you click “lock”, the communication would be visible to you and only the person to whom you have communicated.
2. Recheck your privacy settings. Do not let others “find” you from the web. You can control this by reediting your privacy set up.
3. If you wish to show your pictures to the world, make sure that you do not exhibit your private pictures. Create separate album for the public and separate album for your friends only.
4. Use pseudo names if you need to protect your identity .
5. Do not let others to handle your account.
6. In your favorite community, use the words carefully. Remember, provoked men and women may see you as a perpetual ‘nuisance’.
7. There will be men and women who may have ‘adult contents’ in their profiles. Do not try to befriend them to know why they have created such profiles unless you are seriously interested to fall in the trap. You may see requests from these profiles to befriend you. Besides saying “No”, you must also ignore and block them so that they do not disturb you in future. The profiles pages of these profiles will show you the options to ignore /block them on the left hand side.
8. If you see your profile has been hacked or your pictures had been misused, do not try to hack the faulty profiles. Remember, it may not serve any purpose and it will anger the mischief monger more.

Happy Orkutting.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2011), “What every woman should know about Orkut ”, 6^th May,2011, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/