My Thoughts on CIPA & COPPA

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What is CIPA & COPPA you ask?  I just learned more about them myself.  They are laws that are intended to protect our children/students on the internet. The laws are also very important to know and understand at length if you want to be a Technology Specialist for a school system one day.  Here is a quick overview of both:

CIPA (2000 & updated 2011) - Children's Internet Protection Act

In a nut shell - If your school system receives government funding through E-rate, the school system must provide filtering and monitoring software on all school devices and educate students on cyber safety.

COPPA (1998 with provisions in 2013)  - Children's Online Privacy & Protection Act

In a nut shell - This law protects the privacy of children under the age of 13 by not collecting their personal information.

For more info on both: CIPA & COPPA

Before I wanted to give you my thoughts on the laws I wanted to get some other perspectives about them.

In CIPA & COPPA Controlling the Internet "For the Sake of the Children", the author Audrey Watters stated that she is not a fan of filters.  She does not want to be restricted in what she views and reads and does not believe that children should be restricted either.  She points out that there is a "hypocrisy" in the tech world where: "we embrace freedom, open access for everyone, except kids."

In Dana Boyd's post titled How COPPA Fails Parents, Educators, & Youth, I took away a couple of interesting points.

1. Parents and kids believe that age requirements are there to protect their           safety instead of their privacy.  

She elaborates by saying, "Not only does COPPA fail to inform parents about the appropriateness of a particular site, but parental misinterpretations of the age restrictions mean that few are aware that this stems from an attempt to protect privacy."

2.  COPPA is well-intended but its implementation, practice, and impact have          been a failure

• The key to making COPPA work is not to make it stricter   
• this is not possible without violating privacy at an even greater level
• Parents want to be able to parent and to be able to decide what is and is not appropriate for their children.
• Not all parents parent and we don’t want that to keep kids/students from being able to access great resources available online
• The way to improve COPPA is to go back to the table and think about how children’s data is being used

So what do I think.  I think that there needs to be federal laws in place to provide basic protections for our children.  I think that the current laws don't quite do the job.  The depth and breath of the digital world are ever changing and expanding both for the good and the bad.  This also makes it very difficult to keep federal laws up-to-date and comprehensive.

With CIPA, I do believe that schools need to provide filters for their networks and devices and that students need cyber safety education.  I also believe that inappropriate content still gets past the filters.  It is my opinion that teachers need training in how to provide appropriate supervision, screening, and be the final filter for the content that students are utilizing.  Lets face it, kids will be kids. They can be crafty, clever, and full of mischief when the opportunity provides itself.  Just ask my husband who happens to be a tech specialist for an Indiana school system.

With COPPA, I believe that there should be privacy protections for students.  To what extent, I'm not sure.  I do believe that parents need to be more informed  and/or educated on what the current law really means for their children.  Ultimately, parents need to parent, but we as educators know just how often that does not happen. Which in-turn, places that responsibility back on the schools.