“Get your own house in order” – Information Commissioner urges organisations using children’s data to comply with the ICO’s Children’s Code

In his recent speech to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, John Edwards had two key messages for his audience:

Firstly, he argued that data handlers should stop thinking of data breaches as “small admin errors”, and instead try to consider the “ripple effect of damage and distress” these breaches can cause. He stressed the importance of keeping the human cost of data protection at the centre of the conversation, and urged members of organisations “from the C-suite down” to take responsibility for ensuring that members of the public are not being “kept in the dark about where their information’s going and what it’s being used for”.

His second focus was on the ICO’s work on children’s privacy rights. He referred to research indicating that “almost half of British parents felt they had little to no control over the information social media and video sharing platforms are collecting about their children”.

Returning to the question of responsibility, he stressed “children shouldn’t have to figure this out by themselves. It’s not their job”.

He warned that the ICO’s recent announcement of investigations into TikTok, Reddit and Imgur was not “a free pass” for smaller companies to adopt or continue unlawful practices – rather, he invited smaller companies to view the investigations as a “warning shot”.

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Authors

J Ockenden

Call 2023

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