
California Bill To Give Parents Access To Kids’ Facebook Pages - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/16/california-bill-to-give-parents-access-to-kids-facebook-pages/
======
henrikschroder
Back in the late nineties I worked for a gay dating site, and when we had
discussions on how to handle minors and their parents, we always sided with
the (gay) kids, preserving their right to keep secrets from their parents.

I doubt anyone involved in this bill even considered that perspective, but in
this age of diminishing privacy rights, I shouldn't be surprised that children
have even less rights than adults. :-/

~~~
younata
children have always had less rights than adults.

One of the things I've learned in the year I've been a legal adult is the
amount of rights I suddenly was granted. It took a while for me to adjust to
both the freedom, and the idea that I can actually screw up my entire life
with just one/a few bad decision(s).

~~~
cheez
Example?

~~~
lotu
Weed

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MichaelApproved
I'd be just as interested in their email actives. Does that mean another bill
is passed to force ISPs to give me access? This is a joke.

The free market already created a solution for this, and as a parent, you have
all the power needed. put monitoring software on the pc and get the passwords
from the child. No new micro managing laws needed.

States should focus on figuring out how to pay their bills, not creating
business stifling laws that already have solutions in place.

~~~
cookiecaper
I agree. I think that I have a tendency to give parents access to this type of
information much more than many on HN, but you have to do it at the right
endpoint: the computer and network a child uses to access the internet.
Parents need to install a network appliance that can analyze and present all
of the activity that occurs on their network (i.e., a good router). I'm
surprised that these are not yet widespread. I would be interested in creating
one if someone wants to invest money.

~~~
whatwhatwhat
I'm sure there are plenty of kids that can circumvent this and access facebook
from friends' computers, from school, cafes, etc. This is especially true if
the kid knows they are being watched or if they have a laptop. Kids are smart.
You suggest that a parent out-tech their child. I don't imagine thats so easy
to do for some parents that aren't great with computers when they are up
against a tech-savvy teenager.

~~~
darklajid
Listen, what's the purpose of the law? To help parents control their children?

If you don't trust your children to understand your lessons about being
careful online, do you install cameras on their way to school as well? Do you
read their text messages and diaries? Is this seriously acceptable/normal over
there or is this explicitly targeted at Facebook/social media sites?

For me this seems like an easy way out. If you are suspicious that your own
kid does something you don't like (Yeah.. And you never did that in the good
old times..), let's just snoop out their communication on Facebook.

And - as we all know - the things you say or write as a kid are like totally
acceptable all the time. You'd never talk bad about things your parents like
and you'd always like your parents to check out the people you've got a crush
on..

 _Edit:_

You suggest a kid can use a computer at another kids house (to do stuff on the
'net that has to be controlled) but trust your kid to not abuse the distance
to your home in other ways? "Yeah, she's over at a friend's. Hope they're not
on Facebook again."?

~~~
cabalamat
> _Listen, what's the purpose of the law? To help parents control their
> children?_

More likely, the purpose is to grandstand and give technophobic/worried
parents the impression something is being done on their behalf, in the hope
that they'll vote for the politicians responsible in future. Whether the law
works is irrelevant.

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archgoon
The article is completely wrong. This bill is actually a general privacy bill.

[http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_24...](http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_242_bill_20110502_amended_sen_v98.html)

Most of the provisions are about preventing social networks from by default
publishing information like home address of their users. In fact, nowhere in
the legislation does it actually give parents access to the information, only
the ability of parents to request _removal_ of information from the website.

~~~
nitrogen
Removal is still a problem, if the bill is referring to parents removing their
older kids' accounts. Teenagers should have access to an online life that
their parents can't just delete on a whim.

~~~
archgoon
Only personally identifying information can be removed. And the bill is fairly
restrictive in what counts. SS number, Credit Card number, drivers license
number. Images and videos only count if they reveal the individuals current
location.

Furthermore, the parents can only do this if the individual _identifies_
themselves as under 18. If they do not do so, Facebook (or whoever) doesn't
have to do anything the parents request.

And again, this can only be removed if the parents have knowledge and access
to the information they're trying to get rid of in the first place.

~~~
nitrogen
That sounds reasonable. I commented without reading the full article and bill
because I know how much the Internet helped me experience the world when I was
growing up in a small town, and would hate to see future generations deprived
of the same benefits.

~~~
lotu
This dose sound reasonable but do we need a law for this. I get the feeling
the Facebook dosen't want to publish SSN and credit card info. If a parent
dosen't have the personal authority to prevent their kids from publishing the
information online, then I don't think they have the right to have it removed.
Now personal infomration realted to the parent they have the right to remove,
just like every other individual though.

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anigbrowl
I am not very impressed with this article. What the legislation actually says
is that social networking websites have to set privacy options to maximum by
default for new users, and that any user (or if a minor, their parents) can
have certain personally identifying information removed within 48 hours on
request.

[http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_24...](http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_242_bill_20110502_amended_sen_v98.html)
It's very short, and although I think it's a bit flawed, it's clearly aimed at
protecting privacy rather than enabling snooping.

~~~
darklajid
Whoa, thanks for the link.

After reading that I guess TechCrunch tried to get a nice headline here.. I
don't see that the bill allows parents access to the profile. It 'only' allows
parents to request that personal details of their children are taken down
within 48h and it says that the default privacy settings are rather strict
(Name, City revealed only) and need to be explained in plain text.

That seems to be a lot different from 'Your parents can access your profile,
young boy'? Am I misreading the text?

~~~
anigbrowl
Well, it _could_ be used to gain access to a minor's profile. Say Maurice
Minor sets up a Spacelook account and elects to share his personal data with
Spacelook Friends only. His parents become concerned because strange people
start appearing at the door every day claiming to be Maurice's good friends,
but since Maurice's parents are not Friends with him on Spacelook they can't
tell exactly what information he's making available. Fearing for young
Maurice's safety, they demand Spacelook get rid of his personal data but the
company does not respond. They sue, Spacelook asks the court to dismiss their
suit and denies any liability, and now the parents ask the Court to order that
Spacelook reveal any and all data about Maurice's account.

But as written, it doesn't seem like the parents can just demand access to any
and all personal information about a minor's social network account - only
that it be removed or restricted from public view. I don't know what existing
law says about access rights of parents to a minor's data/accounts - that'd be
a bit of a project. IANAL, TINLA, etc.

------
run4yourlives
Much ado about nothing, it seems. I'm wondering if Mr. Biggs actually read the
very bill he linked to?

[http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_24...](http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_242_bill_20110502_amended_sen_v98.html)

The only reason the "evil parents" are allowed to direct the website to remove
information _on the minor's behalf_ is because a minor is, well, legally _a
minor_!

The only people I would suspect getting all uppity about this are minors
themselves (whose opinions matter little, to be frank) and sites that don't
want to spend the money to retool their new user sign-up policies and
defaults.

------
cabalamat
This doesn't seem very practical to me. How is Facebook meant to decide
whether (a) one fb user is a parent of another fb user, and (b) that the 2nd
fb user is under 18?

~~~
hvs
Lawmakers have no need for practicality and common sense.

~~~
cabalamat
Very true. Sadly.

------
kinghajj
How would this have any jurisdiction over social networking sites outside of
California? If not, then it seems this will just push them out of the state.

~~~
marcusbooster
It doesn't. And it would.

~~~
nwmt
I think it's a bit premature to suggest that either a) Facebook would move out
of California or b) a new social network would start up outside of California
and eat Facebook's lunch because it didn't have draconian laws. Surely there
are easier ways to solve the problem at hand.

~~~
marcusbooster
I'm only going from the article, which is evidently flawed (TechCrunched!),
but it could effectively add a tax on social networking sites operating in the
state. States compete for companies all the time and this could provide an
opening for somewhere else to put together a more compelling package.
Obviously the big drawback to leaving is the lack of tech people, so I guess
you weigh your options. Personally, I feel like Facebook and Google would set
up shop on the moon if it were in their financial interest and they could find
someone to run it.

~~~
anigbrowl
What you're missing is that the state the company is located in doesn't
matter. In general, if it's doing business in California, it can be sued in
California court. This has been the case for a long long time. Otherwise
everyone would just set up in Delaware or whichever state was most
inaccessible and/or sympathetic to corporate defendants.

------
DavidSJ
I'm so glad Congress wasn't paying attention to the Internet when I was a kid.

------
asharp
Adults especially seem to forget that there is no clear change that happens
when kids turn 18. Children turn into adults in a very gradual manner over a
large period of time rather heterogeneously. This then causes problems when
adults, especially those who have been adults for a large period of time
attempt to treat all "children" (including teenagers/etc.) as children,
especially when the use of power is used.

To give an example (taken from this page), put yourself into this sort of
position. You have somebody who cares for you, wants all that is best for you.
Somebody like a spouse. You live together, talk/etc. If you found out that
they were spying on you, listening in on what you talk with to your friends,
trying to find what websites you visit/etc. You'd consider it a rather massive
invasion of privacy and you'd consider the spouse to be at the very least
creepy, even if they were aiming to learn this information "for your own
good".

Similarly a few posts here are variants on "spy on your kids", using various
clandestine methods. I'd imagine that you would find it rather distasteful if
your government were caught doing similar things to you, especially if the
reasons used were that it was "for your own good", and yet the child's
perspective in this isn't being considered.

To illustrate, say you are 18 and one day (age of majority 18), and had any of
those things happen to you, you would be, quite understandably, pissed. Now as
a 17 year old, your reaction would likely be unchanged, however there would be
a lot less understanding and a lot more of a tendency to explain the anger
generated and the resulting behavior as simply "poor behavior" of the child.

------
selectnull
And while they're at it, they can set the value of pi to 3.

------
VladRussian
whenever both are true simutaneously:

1\. child doesn't want to share his online presence with his/her parents

2\. and the parents still insist on it

then this parent/child relationship has much more serious problem than just
the issue of access to the online page, and applying the government force on
the side of the parent against the will of the child - how would it make the
situation better?

~~~
jerf
Bear in mind that parents can be liable for the actions of their children in a
variety of ways. If a parent can be hit with negligence because they allowed
someone to abduct their child because they were seduced away by somebody
obviously creepy on $SOCIAL_NETWORK, then they need the power to discharge
their legally-obligated parenting responsibilities.

I'm not saying this PROVES this is a good law or anything, I haven't read it,
I'm just saying that this should be taken into account when trying to figure
out the correct child-parent rights balance. If you come down on the side of
the child, you are also saying that you agree that the parent is legally
blameless if something goes wrong. I'm not sure everybody is quite ready to
take that step. You should also consider the full age range; I think a lot of
people mentally consider only late teens, but it has to work for 7-year-olds
too, and all other ages. _Everybody_ is on the net now.

------
olalonde
Seems like California legislators take Silicon Valley's "capital of
innovation" status a bit too much for granted.[1][2][3]

[1] [http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-
Payments-...](http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-
Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley)

[2] [http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/16/california-bill-to-give-
par...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/16/california-bill-to-give-parents-
access-to-kids-facebook-pages/)

[3]
[http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArtic...](http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=149906)

------
olalonde
Do people really need government assistance to take care of their own kids?

~~~
jmathai
You'd be surprised.

~~~
ioa44
Republican in the house ^^^

------
forkandwait
Before you-all get in a tizzy from Techcrunch's sensationalist headlines,
please take a look at some of the links to the actual law in the comments
below.

------
kwantam
A thought experiment: how quickly would this bill be killed if Facebook played
hardball and threatened to kill all California accounts?

~~~
Queue29
That would be an easy bluff to call.

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JoeAltmaier
I think only the FBI should be able to access my kids' facebook accounts.
Heaven help us all if someone who knows, loves and has their best interest at
heart should learn about my kids interests, friends and beliefs!

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JulianMorrison
How long until some poor gay or trans kid gets outed and kicked out of home by
religious parents because of this? I think it's going in absolutely the wrong
direction. Kids should have their privacy respected.

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shareme
Hmm, I think California lawmakers flunked constitutional law..

As I understand it that is no US Constitutional distinction between rights of
parents or rights of children..ie when you are born in the US you have full
rights under the constitution despite not being able to enter contracts a non-
minor. That would mean that a parent getting private access to a private other
FB member account of a child would fall under the right be to be secure form
search and seizure ..among other constitutional issues

~~~
anamax
> As I understand it that is no US Constitutional distinction between rights
> of parents or rights of children..ie when you are born in the US you have
> full rights under the constitution despite not being able to enter contracts
> a non-minor.

You need to re-read the US Constititution. It has several prohibitions based
on age. And the Supremes have been more than happy to accept several others.

> That would mean that a parent getting private access to a private other FB
> member account of a child would fall under the right be to be secure form
> search and seizure ..among other constitutional issues

In almost all circumstances, parents can consent to have their children's
physical property searched. (This is very settled law.) Given that, what makes
you that "virtual property" would be treated any differently?

BTW - Even if you're an adult, other people can consent to have your property
searched in many circumstances.

To my reading, 4th amendment law doesn't much follow the 4th amendment, but
the Supremes have gone a different direction for decades.

