Family and Child Online Safety Blog - SafetyClicks

Its history lesson time. In 1998, Congress passed a law called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This law prohibits Web sites from collecting personally identifiable information from children (defined as those people aged 12 and younger) without explicit permission from their parents. Personally Identifiable Information encompasses many things, including a child's full name, e-mail address, and physical address.

You may have noticed that most social networking sites have a minimum age requirement of 13 and COPPA is one of the big reasons why; the social networking sites collect personally identifiable information. There are, however, many sites made for kids, even though they require personal information to be shared in order for them to participate in the site. These sites require your permission as a parent for your child to participate, and this permission is normally easily granted via e-mail. You always want to take take normal precautions before sharing your credit card number, but there are some sites that require parents to prove their age by entering credit card information as verification. Some of the sites with good reputations include KOL, Disney, and Club Penguin. While these sites do have good reputations, nothing takes your place as a parent knowing what your kids are doing online.

How do you know if a site is safe for your kids?Ask around. Talk to other parents to see if they have heard about the site and if they let their kids participate. See if they have any feedback, positive or negative.

Review the site yourself. Create a login and familiarize yourself with what your child's experience is going to be. Be wary of sites that encourage you to share too much information (such as school name, full name, etc.). Can you find a way to do something that you would be uncomfortable letting your child do?

Check the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy to make sure you are comfortable with them. Reputable sites will always have these readily available for you to review. Look especially for what ages are allowed. If it is a site designed for ages 13+, and your child is 12, don't let your child participate until he/she is old enough.

Periodically ask your children to show you around the sites they frequent. Doing this gives you an opportunity to not only see what they do online, but lets them teach you something you might not know about the site, and it opens the door to talk about online safety.

Open communication between parents and their kids is important for many reasons. Online safety is a hot topic and will likely continue to be as technologies evolve. Keeping up with safety ideas will continue to be equally as important. OnGuard Online is another resource for you, providing quick facts regarding kids' privacy.