Re: UKNM: Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act

[Ray Taylor]

Sam Michel <

samchinwag [dot] com

> asks


> but this law means a site can't gather any information on a child under 13

> without parental consent including setting a cookie on the child's

machine.


Protecting privacy is a good thing, particularly if we are talking about <13

year olds, for reasons that I hope are obvious.


But :


1. A cookie is not, in itself, personal information

2. Computers do not have personality and are therefore not entitled to

privacy

3. There is no way that I am aware of that you can identify the owner of a

computer connected to the internet from the computer itself, let alone work

out the owner's age.


You can, of course, use cookies, and other methods, to match internet users

to their computers using demographic data collected via the web or other

means. So, for instance, you could ask users of a web site to register

details including their age, and then set a cookie to identify the user's

computer next time they visit the site. This presumes that the user does not

lie about their age (eg as when a 12 year old boy wants to access smut and

is asked for his age). So if either of my children use my computer to

register for a site that asks about age, the site might presume my computer

is owned by someone under the age of 13. Without registration or some other

method of separately collecting the info, there is no way you can tell the

age of a computer user or owner.


All of which makes nonsense of any attempt to use legislation to protect any

child's privacy by banning cookies from being set on the computer they are

using at the time to access the internet.


What should be controlled is the compilation, maintenance and use of

databases containing personal information, as in the UK Data Protection Act.


Ray Taylor



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