For many children, smartphones are a gateway to greater independence and a more fulfilling social life. But smartphones can also open up a child’s life to the intrusive tracking, profiling and targeting that are table stakes for life in our digital world, potentially in ways that go beyond just advertising. Here, I’ll explore how smartphones are used by companies to legally surveil minors and what can be done to help children stay protected from the excesses of the surveillance economy.
If you’ve ever received a digital ad that felt eerily precise, you’re not alone. Tech companies, advertising networks, data brokers and other players in the surveillance economy have a vested interest in extracting as much data about us as they can and ultimately using that data to serve us better-targeted ads. That’s how companies like Google and Facebook have been able to reap massive profits despite primarily offering free services to billions of users.
In this data-hungry environment, smartphones have become the perfect conduit from which companies can extract personal information about us. In addition to always being connected to a network, acting as a central hub for our information and virtually never leaving our side, smartphones have unique characteristics that make legal surveillance a breeze.
At any given time, an individual search engine or social media provider may have millions of data points about an individual user, including those collected via smartphones – locations, photos and videos, in-app behaviors and more – as well as those aggregated from other digital activities and even from offline sources. This mountain of data is then analyzed using deep learning systems to create a highly specific profile that enables advertisers to target the user with pinpoint accuracy on these and other services. So, for instance, if a user is into pasta and historic buildings, they would be served an ad for a new Italian restaurant that’s opening up in a refurbished train station near their home.
For children with smartphones, the implications of being caught in the middle of this track-analyze-serve feedback loop are profound. For one, research has shown that legal surveillance increases anxiety and reduces autonomy. Legal surveillance also normalizes the idea that surveillance is an unavoidable component of everyday life and perhaps makes children less likely to protest this practice as adults. In addition, an intricate profile built during one’s youth can ultimately be used against that person when they enter adulthood, whether that’s being unfairly scored by a potential school or being charged higher rates by a lender.
Short of deleting all of our apps and accounts, escaping the tentacles of the surveillance economy is a tall order. However, there are a few things parents can do to protect their children from being tracked via their smartphones:
By working with your child to understand the true price of “free” apps and how the data provided to these services can be used against them, they will ultimately be more conscientious (and happier) digital citizens.