Designing for GDPR - Investigating Children’s Understanding of Privacy: A Survey Approach

Abstract

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) places new obligations on businesses that collect and process data from children. It goes so far as to say that privacy notices should be presented in child-friendly and age appropriate formats. Fulfilling GDPR obligations will require designers to have a better understanding of how children understand privacy issues. This research aims to investigate children's understanding of privacy online. Thirty-two children from a UK primary school, aged between 8 years and 10 years old completed a survey to gauge their understanding of privacy. Eight different scenarios were presented to the children and they had to decide whether the information should be kept private or not and state the reason why. This work identifies that children do have an understanding of privacy, especially when related to online safety. However, children do not yet understand that their data has an inherent value, have misconceptions about data and what data should be protected. This highlights the challenges for designers of technology used by children to meet the GDPR obligations.

Children designing privacy warnings: Informing a set of design guidelines

“…Two privacy personas were developed by combining information about the typical online activities of children and their attitude towards privacy (Dempsey et al, 2018, Livingstone et al, 2017; to acknowledge the importance of mediator influence, details were added about the persona's interests at school and details about their parents. These influential adults were synthesised by using the privacy segmentations described by Dupree, Devries, Berry, and Lank (2016), and creating a narrative around these attitudes to privacy.…”

“…While it may not be typical to include information beyond the persona character themselves, it was decided to include information about mediators to provide a more life-like example of how a child may take decisions about disclosing privacy. While children are able to understand various concepts related to privacy (Dempsey et al, 2018), they are often disinterested in privacy (Bryce & Klang, 2009), or do not have the vocabulary or ability to articulate their knowledge (Boto et al, 2015). This would suggest that children are likely to fall within Dupree's "marginally concerned" group.…”

The Winding Road to Accessing the Voices of One Thousand Schoolchildren: A Nexus Analysis of Collecting Data for a Survey

“…Although children are considered to be legal minors, they have the right and ability to actively make decisions concerning their participation in research (TENK, 2019), i.e., to give their assent (agreement to participate) or dissent (refusal to participate) (Coyne, 2010;Felzmann, 2009;Water, 2018). After informed parental consent had been obtained, the researcher visited the classes and told the children about the study in a child-friendly manner adjusted to their level of maturity (Coyne, 2010;Dempsey et al, 2018;Milkaite & Lievens, 2020;TENK, 2019;United Nations General Assembly, 1989). During the dialogue with the children, the researcher explained who she was, what the research was about and why it was being done, and that the children were free to decide whether or not they wanted to participate.…”

“…In an age-appropriate, sensitive, and dialogical way, the researcher also made sure that the children understood what was meant by words such as anonymous and voluntariness. If children do not understand, then they cannot give consent (Dempsey et al, 2018). All but six of the children decided to fill out the questionnaire.…”

“…Meeting the children in their class was a truly positive experience for the researchers, and the children were curious and interested in the study. Generally speaking, in order for children to understand what they are engaging in and give their consent, it is advisable to make use of visual information, such as icons/symbols, graphics, and cartoons (Dempsey et al, 2018;Milkaite & Lievens, 2020). Consequently, an information sheet with colorful app icons was shown when the researchers explained the aims and procedures to the children in the introductory part of the meeting (see Figure 2).…”