Privacy

Bowing to criticism, TikTok has unveiled parental controls in a new feature called Family Safety Mode that allows parents to link their accounts to their teens'. This allows parents to set time limits as well as manage direct messages and content. The safety mode is currently only available in the UK but will be expanded to other geographic areas in the near future.

There are a myriad of stories floating around online about laptop cameras, security cameras, and baby monitor cameras being hacked, allowing hackers to both spy on or communicate with unsuspecting adults and children. While these attacks do happen, they are preventable. Here are a few tips if you have these devices in your home:

• If you haven’t already, you probably should cover the camera lens on your desktop or laptop, even if you just fold a piece of paper or put a sticky note. For most of us, chances of being spied on this way will never happen, but it is easy to eliminate all risk.
• Secure your wireless router so that you can disable remote access to your router. This will prevent it from being configured from anywhere but inside your house and connected to your network. This is especially important id you have Internet protocol (IP) cameras in your household, including your baby monitor. These devices use the Internet and your local area network to communicate with your smart phone.
• Next you need to add layers of protection – one is not enough. First and foremost, all cameras in your household should have a strong password. It is important to treat your cameras with the same attention to security that you do with your laptop, tablet and phone. You will also want to make sure your network itself is protected by enabling encryption and disabling remote access. Another good tip is to change the name of your home network – leaving it as default can tip off a cybercriminal onto what type of router you have. If they know the manufacturer of your router, they will know the vulnerabilities that model has and can try to exploit them, according to Ioana Rijnetu from the Heimdal Security blog.
• Stay vigilant and make sure your keep the firmware – the pre-installed software that runs your camera – updated. Since the steps for doing that vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, make sure you know the name and model of your camera if you need to consult with the manufacturer.
• Beyond that, follow this Video Baby Monitor Security checklist that works for most any kind of camera in your home.

In a recent opinion piece in The Dallas Morning News, Doug Levin, president and founder of the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, challenges school leaders to take measures to protect both their schools and communities from digital threats amid growing reliance on technology in school operations, teaching and learning. He urges them to collaborate on security challenges and share information on cyber threats with other school districts that face similar issues. School cybersecurity failures across the country have resulted in the theft of millions of taxpayer dollars, outages of school IT systems, and large-scale identity theft.

Sharing pictures and updates about your children on social media has become a norm for most people who want to keep in touch with family and friends around the world, despite experts on digital safety cautioning parents about being very careful about what you post.  Accustations of “sharenting,” or obnoxiously sharing every little detail of their children’s lives in pictures online, criticize parents who are robbing children of their right to privacy and dignity, and sometimes rubbing others the wrong way by what many see as bragging. So what should you think about when it comes to cautiously and sparingly posting pictures of your children online?

• Before you post a picture to any site, understand there is still the potential for anyone to see it. Even if you have created a private or “secret” group, with every privacy control available, people may still be able to forward pictures and messages, so think very carefully about what you post. Anything that is shared online – pictures, messages, status updates­– is stored somewhere and has the potential to come back and haunt you (or your child) later. Think about how pictures of your child misbehaving or negative comments about behavior or learning issues could affect them in the future.
• For what you do decide to post, use as many privacy control settings as possible before posting a picture of your child on any social media site. These are not absolute guarantees to keep strangers from seeing her photo, but it decreases the risk. Also turn off your phone’ s GPS. The default on most phones is to have the GPS turned on.
• Think about using photo-sharing sites such as Google Photos or Flickr that require users to log in to see your individual pictures (unlike on social media, where all your followers can see them).
• Never offer any personal information with the photo such as your home address, your children’s school, where their birthday party was held or even what sports team they are on or where the game was played.
• Make it a rule to try to not include your children’s friends in pictures, but if it is unavoidable do not identify their friends by name.
• Avoid posting any pictures or comments suggesting your child is a loner or if he's upset about something someone said. Strangers might use that to lure your child into a situation that can be dangerous.
• Recognize that while you are the owner of the photo you took, by posting it on a social media site you effectively grant permission to the website where you posted it to use the work in any manner according to its terms of use or privacy standards. If copyright is your concern, consider adding a digital watermark (a superimposed logo or word) to your photos.
• If you share custody of your children, take care. Sometimes ex partners find it emotionally trying to see photos of their child when they are not part of the happy occasion.
• As soon as your child is old enough to understand, ask permission before posting any photos. What may seem innocent to you, it might embarrass her if her classmates see it. The last person you should ever want to embarrass or expose to cyberbullying is someone you're supposed to protect.
• Once the picture is posted be prepared for a variety of feedback. Not everyone will see that darling or amusing picture of your child the way you do.
• Keep in mind that posting a picture of a child could identify you to advertisers and data collectors as someone to target for baby or childrens products.

Facebook filed papers recently pledging to enact privacy protections "far beyond those required by United States law" as it urged US District Judge Timothy Kelly to approve the platform's $5 billion proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook is also working to appease advocacy groups that contend the fine isn't enough punishment and doesn't hold the platform accountable for past violations.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun the glacially slow process of considering updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The last time COPPA was amended was in 2013, when the FTC updated the definition of personal information to incorporate geolocation information along with photos, videos and audio files that contain a child's image or voice. Critics say one model the federal government should be looking at is the California Consumer Privacy Act. The California law not only expands privacy protections to minors under the age of 13 but also creates additional protections for children aged 13 through 16, who must affirmatively consent rather than opt out of the sale of their personal information. Other models include Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which extended its privacy protections for children to the age of 16, and the United Kingdom, which required its Information Commissioner's Office to create an "age-appropriate design code," which would have applications to youth up to the age of 18."

Malware known as “Predator the Thief”, which is capable of stealing usernames and passwords, has received updates that could make attacks more effective. The malware has added phishing documents, such as fake invoices from companies you may do business with (while a previous campaign used a fake court summons as a lure), to attract victims and has become better able to avoid detection and analysis. Remember to never open an attachment in an email or text unless you know who it is from and what it might be about.

Did you go to class today? How about the library? Some colleges are finding this information about their students by adding a mobile app and short-range phone sensors to track students around campus. Using networks of Bluetooth transmitters and wireless access points, the app can track attendance and even calculate "risk scores" for academic success based on how frequently students visit the library. Critics say this kind of intrusion into students’ lives represents a new low in invading student privacy on a massive scale, but this style of surveillance has become just another fact of life for many Americans. Many apps and programs involve cameras, sensors or microphones that measure people’s activity and whereabouts with striking precision. This tracking of everyday living allows trends to be analyzed for any number of purposes.

Recent research has shown that facial recognition technology is more likely to misidentify African Americans and Asian Americans, a finding that is continuing to raise questions about using the technology in K-12 schools. In a blog post, Sarah St. Vincent, director of Cornell Tech's Computer Security Clinic, shares 10 questions school leaders and parents should ask before adopting the technology, including how accurate the system is, particularly for women and people of color.

Have you been getting a lot of spam calls on your mobile phone recently? One study shows that nearly half of all calls to mobile phones are fraudulent, and scams are getting more sophisticated. Call-protection company First Orion says that hacker breaches of major consumer-oriented businesses, such as retailers, give scammers data such as names, phone numbers and more that they can use to impersonate brands or charities in phone calls or emails to consumers.