Parents & Kids

Videos for Parents

• Go Figure (Online Safety Version) by the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI)
• Tech Talk: Beyond Internet Safety by Common Sense Media
• Protecting personal information and privacy, a video by Parry Aftab
• GPS Tracking Services and Your Teen has information about location sharing applications and services for parents from Common Sense Media
• iKeepSafe offers a number of short educational videos for parents and kids
• Cisco offers tips for Keeping Kids Safe Online
• Playing and Staying Safe Online from You Tube’s Safety Center.
• "Smartphone pictures pose privacy risks," an investigative news story from NBC Action News in Kansas City, MO.

Resources About Tracking Kids Online

• Federal Trade Commission’s Proposed Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, Sept. 2011
• Do Not Track Privacy Bill Appears in Congress,  New York Times, May 2010
• On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 17, 2010
• What they Know – Kids, an interactive investigative article from the Wall Street Journal, reveals how tracking files are installed on 50 of the most popular U.S. websites for children and teenagers.
• How to Protect Your Child’s Information Online, Wall Street Journal , Sept.17, 2010
• Sites Harvesting Kids’ Data Fly Under the Radar, Even for the FTC, ZDNet, Sept. 20, 2010
• Understanding the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 17, 2010

Resources About Mobile Privacy

• Teens and Mobile Phones: A Resource Guide for Parents from Safety Web
• Privacy in the Age of the Smartphone from Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, coming soon
• GPS Tracking Services and Your Teen information about location sharing applications and services for parents from Common Sense Media
• GPS Tracking: Should Your Teens Use Location Services? by Common Sense Media
• Giving Kids Smartphones Requires Smart Parenting, featuring great tips and video “Mobile Year in Review,” Dec. 14, 2010
• Data Privacy Day and Stay Safe Online offer a Mobile Privacy Tips sheet

Resources About Social Networking

• 20 Facebook Privacy Settings Tips from techradar.com, Feb. 21, 2011 
• 5 Ways to Control Your Facebook Privacy (including advice on managing subscriptions) from Social Media Examiner, Oct. 11, 2011
• Facebook Privacy: 10 Settings Every User Needs to Know offered by Mashable,  Feb. 7, 2011
• Connectsafely.org’s Larry Magid and Anne Collier offer “A Parent’s Guide to Facebook “ (Fall 2010) supported by connectsafely.org and ikeepsafe.org. 
• Controlling How You Share, an instructional page offered by Facebook answering questions and educating users about privacy controls, including Places, and videos on privacy settings. 
• How to Protect Your Teen on Social Networks: Tips for Parents by Truste
• 21 Google+ Privacy Tips: The Ultimate Guide from Huffington Post, July 21, 2011
• A Complete Guide to web, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus privacy and security from the edublogger, July 14, 2011
• OnguardOnline.gov’s Kids and Socializing Online (available in English and Spanish)
• Yoursphere, an online kid-friendly social networking community dedicated to privacy and safety strictly for people under the age of 17

Resources About Child Identity Theft

• Identity Theft Resource Center provides facts about Identity Theft and Children
• Child Identity Theft: New Evidence Indicates Identity Thieves are Targeting Children for Unused Social Security Numbers by Richard Power, Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Mellon CyLab
• Child Identity Theft from Transunion
• FTC Finds Child ID Theft a Growing Problem (July 2011)

Resources About Sexting and Sextortion

• How to prevent teenagers from sexting and protect them from other teens who do, Reputation.com
• Sexting, the Internet and Your Privacy – What You need to Know, including several PSAs from Planned Parenthood.
• Understand sextortion, a crime in which Internet predators catch victims in embarrassing situations online and threaten to expose them unless they create sexually explicit photos or videos for them.  
• The Workplace Privacy Data Management & Security Report outlines the legal ramifications of sexting so you can have an informed discussion with your kids.

Interactive Sites for Children

• Carnegie Cyber Academy, an interactive MySecureCyberspace Game designed to teach fourth and fifth graders Internet safety and computer security.  Created by Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute and Carnegie Mellon CyLab, the game is a free download from the website, provided as part of the university’s outreach project for cyberawareness called MySecureCyberspace.
• Play and Learn: Being Online, an interactive downloadable activity book from insafe for kids aged 4-8, available in Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian and Spanish, and coming soon in Greek. insafe also provides activity book guidelines for teachers and parents and offers a number of informational pages for children and for parents.
• Let Me Know (LMK): Life Online is an interactive webpage offered by the Girl Scouts and Windows with pages on Privacy, Mobile Devices, Social Networking, Cybersecurity and more.
• The FTC offers You Are Here, a virtual mall webpage designed for kids from fifth grade to eighth   grade and parents and educators.  Visitors can play games, design ads, chat with customers and store owners, and learn key consumer concepts, such as how advertising affects you, how you benefit when businesses compete, how (and why) to protect your information, and how to spot scams. Make sure to Visit the Security Plaza to learn about protecting your privacy (online and off), and protect the citizens of Earth against identity-stealing invaders.
• Netsmartz offers NetSmartzKids with activities perfect for younger children.

Helpful Websites About General Privacy Practices

• National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) offers resources for parents about protecting children’s privacy and security online. Materials also cover tips on protecting privacy in security  while emailing, online shopping, social networking, using mobile devices,  and downloading and file-sharing.
• Common Sense Media offers Tips for Protecting Personal Privacy Online and Facebook for parents teaches parents about  the popular social networking site; and advice for families in a 24/7 digital world.  CSM provides information and helpful videos about kids at every developmental stage from pre-K through high school, addressing the many ways kids are interacting and sharing information online. Their materials and resources are categorized by topic, including social networking and virtual worlds, consumerism, and mobile and communicating.
• Common Sense Media also offers: Digital Literacy and Citizenship tips, videos, and articles; a white paper on Digital Literacy and Citizenship in the 21^st Century offering a vision for the education that kids, parents, and teachers need to thrive in a world dominated by digital media and new technologies; and Tech Talk: Beyond Internet Safety.
• Reputation.com’s Resource Center offers How-To’s on a variety of topics from posting photos of your children online to helping your kids manage their online reputations, digital citizenship, and privacy and social networking.  
• Safety Web also offers helpful and free online parenting resources and articles related to privacy and security online.
• Cisco offers Online Privacy: Protecting You and Your Family, a privacy webpage and a white paper, both in commemoration of Data Privacy Day and on-going.  Also check out Cisco’s Online Tips for Data Privacy Day.  Cyberspace Action for Education, also presented by Cisco, offers educational materials for families, teachers and digital citizens on cybersecurity, including this article Cybersecurity: Everyone’s Responsibility.
• AOL offers safetyclicks, a resource dedicated to privacy and safety issues for online families. Safetyclicks features a “guidance for parents” section andallows you to search for articles by topic: social networking, sharing info online, sexting and technology.
• YourSphere for Parents is a blog that provides social networking and Internet safety information for parents.  You can also learn more about Yoursphere, a kid-friendly social networking community dedicated to privacy and safety strictly for people under the age of 17.
• STOP. THINK. CONNECT. has free, printable posters to raise awareness about good online safety habits and tips. 

Books

• Lol . . .OMG! What Every Student Needs to Know about Online Reputation Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbyllying by Matt Ivester, founder of Juicycampus.com, 2011, is a resource for high school or college students
•  A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet: How to connect with friends, find what you need, and stay safe online (American Girl Library) by Sharon Cindrich, is a resource for tweens (girls in third to seventh grade). 

Guides

• Kids and E-Commerce Guide for Parents from Safety Web
• Children’s Online Privacy: A Resource Guide for Parents by Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
• Pew Internet & American Life Project offers “How do [they] even do that? A Pew Internet guide to teens, mobile phones and social media,” June 2010
• The FTC offers Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids about Being Online— FTC offers a guide for parents with practical tips to help kids navigate the online world.  The guide encourages parents to reduce the risks by talking to kids about how they communicate – online and off – and helping kids engage in conduct they can be proud of.  Net Cetera covers what parents need to know, where to go for more information, and issues to raise with kids about living their lives online.  Parents can download this guide, and educators can order free copies of the guide from the FTC to distribute in their classrooms.
• FTC’s Guidance on Privacy

Reports

• Do Smart Phones = Smart Kids? The Impact of the Mobile Explosion on America’s Kids, Families, and Schools, a Common Sense Media White Paper, April 2010
• Protecting Our Kids’ Privacy in a Digital World: A Common Sense Policy Brief prepared by Common Sense Media, December 2010
• Online Privacy: What Does it Mean to Parents and Kids? A fall 2010 survey released by Common Sense Media and conducted by Zogby International
• “Teens and Sexting: How and why minor teens are sending sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images via text messaging” from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Dec. 15, 2009
• The Internet Safety Technical Task Force presents Enhancing Child Safety & Online Technologies: Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States.

Fact Sheets, Articles and Blogs

• Tips for Parents: Who’s That Girl? Image and Social Media, Girl Scout Institute
• In-App Purchases in iPad, iPod, iPhone kids’ games touch off parental firestorm, The Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2011
• Data Privacy Day and the Internet Panopticon: Studies Say Webcam Users Under Serious Threat, Cybrosys Technologies, Jan. 27, 2011
• Educate Your Kids: If You’re on an Open Wi-Fi Network, Look for the “S”, CDT for Geek Dad, Nov. 18, 2010
• Microsoft offers “Online Safety and Privacy Education,” which provides tips and guidance about protecting your family, protecting yourself, and protecting your computer
• The American Academy of Pediatrics News Room offers “Talking to Kids and Teens about Social Media and Sexting.”  The AAP provides age-appropriate advice about talking with your kids about using good judgment with respect to the information and images they share online.
• Facts about Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act from the FTC
• Common Sense Media offers Managing Kids’ Search Queries: What Parents Need to Know, Jan. 8, 2010.  CSM reviews the results of a recent Norton Family Online survey of Top100 searches for kids under 18, and offers age-appropriate guidance about helping kids learn to navigate the Internet with privacy and security in mind.
• Google’s Tips for Online Safety including a video presented by Common Sense Media and Google.
• “The First E-Mail Address: Raising an Internet Savvy Child” by Adam Rosenberg of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Wired. com, Oct. 27, 2009.

Other Helpful Online Resources Focusing on Safety and Security

Many of the resources available online for parents and children focus on Internet safety as opposed to data privacy.  However, best privacy practices enhance safety, and privacy issues are addressed at many of these sites as well.

• Cisco’s Chief Security Officer John Stewart delivers “Stay Vigilant,” a “STOP. THINK. CONNECT. ” message about cyber security and protecting yourself online.
• Parry Aftab’s Wired Safety
• Wired Kids
• Connect Safely (guidance offered in English and Spanish )
• iLookBothWays
• National Cyber Security Alliance
• iKeepSafe focusing on younger children and parents
• Netsmartz
• The Beehive– available in English and in Spanish focusing on internet safety
• PTA: Every child. One voice. Offers Safety for Adolescents’ Online Social Networking, which covers many privacy issues as well.