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In Need of Security: Why Teachers Should Navigate the COPPA Rules

By: Joshua Robinson

The importance of children’s safety on the web can hardly be overestimated. Online Privacy Protection Act is aimed to regulate this pupils’ performance on the Web, but before it came to the successful realization of the initial intention, it brings more and more issues to the surface. Unfortunately, mudding the water is an obligatory part of any reform. To make it less confusing, the participants should be aware of every change in the policy. That is why representatives of the educational institutions should be aware of all the novelties being implemented in the COPPA children’s online privacy code. This is a high-priority issue!

As a document brought to determine the measures of the internet use for children, COPPA act should provide a reliable safety net for them. Considering the fact that today children turn to active internet users from the age of two, starting from the junior school every representative of the teaching staff should know the instructions represented in this document. Such is the requirement of time! Of course, teachers are not the only people responsible for guarding children against undesirable content bringing unexpected consequences. The family should participate in this process.  Unfortunately, not all the parents arrange this aspect. In such situation, a teacher can become a person who prompts parents how they can protect their mobile kids from the threat on the Internet. This is only one of multiple reasons why acquaintance with details of this act is indispensable.

According to the COPPA law, since 1998 schools have been in charge of granting consent to children under thirteen for usage of online resources requiring collecting personal data with educational purposes. Due to the simplified access to the Web offered by smartphones and tablets, modern mobile kids Internet life is not easy to control. Thus, COPPA regulations undergo changes.

While the educational social networks just as apps are widely implemented in the educational process, the question which body or person should be authorized to consent the use of the sites is still under discussion. Should it be the school/ district administrator or the individual instructor? School districts or schools took it upon themselves on paper; individual teachers became in charge of the process. But in practice, for a large number of schools, the COPPA compliance remained on paper. The reason is simple: there is no proper privacy infrastructure to manage the process of pupils’ Internet usage. Though the responsible were named, virtually, the question is not settled. Until this document represents an efficient model proved in the real world, every potential participant of the process, be it a teacher, a school administrator, or parents, should be ready to take the actions for the children’s safety.

Bio:

Young talented writer, Joshua Robinson, has started going the path of the author since university. Aimed at top results in his sphere, he passionately got involved with every single educational issue: today Joshua is contributing to the academic success of a great number of students on the platform offering writing assistance online. This is one more question which he wants to share with you.