Privacy
Background information
Data protection is of particular importance in media education. Parents are responsible for protecting children’s data, often without knowing exactly when their children and adolescents release data in games, on their smartphones etc. and to whom they give which permissions.
Since May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) have protected the fundamental right of citizens to informational self-determination, which is derived from general personal rights.
The GDPR, in its character as a regulation, has a direct impact on the people of Europe. Your aim is to protect personal data that can be used to identify natural persons from misuse. The broader term of data security also includes data from legal entities.
The providers of apps and games like to refer to the minimum age for users stated in their data protection guidelines.
In fact, children could be protected from many unpleasant experiences if they e.g. Would only use WhatsApp from 16, because children lack the experience which pictures they can post, who they can trust and who can have access to their private world.
A minimum age of 13 is also specified for a Google account.
Data protection is important in many areas of everyday media interaction and parents have the constant task of paying attention to where they can protect their own data and the data of their children. To accompany the topic responsibly requires regular discussions and the review of the existing games / apps devices etc. together with children and parents.
Practical tips
- Accompany your child when installing and setting up a smartphone, computer, games and apps or updates.
- If you are unsure yourself, get help from other parents, usually there is someone in the acquaintance or circle of friends who can help.
- Talk about age ratings. Children often report that they give incorrect ages so that they can play apps or games. Is that ok for you? If not, agree rules for dealing with the truth.
- Family rules can help if there is uncertainty about what e.g. may be shared via messenger services / social media.
- Use secure messenger! A data-safe alternative to WhatsApp is Telegram or Wire.
- Terms of use and privacy policy should be read.
- If these terms of use are difficult to understand, get support and ask the provider. The providers are obliged to design the terms of use so that they are understandable to laypeople.
- Apps – Only release the permissions that make sense. (e.g. a calculator app does not need access to contacts or camera …)
- Apps – Under “Settings” you can check which permissions have been released.
- Think about whether you really want to share your location.
- Protect the camera of your smartphone, laptop, tablet etc. with a sticker against activation by hackers.
- If a portal / game / app etc. is free, it costs data.
- Never share passwords with others.
- Find out about updates and if there are new data protection guidelines, what changes have been made and whether you agree to them.
- Block numbers and contacts you don’t want to have
- Be stingy with your data!
- Surf in incognito mode
- Use search engines that do not store data such as Duckduckgo.
- Check whether your email address has already been involved in a data leak. You can do this at https://haveibeenpwned.com/API/v2 .
- To avoid spam, you can also set up an alternative email address. There are also secure portals here, e.g. Posteo.de
- Encrypt your cloud data, data carriers and file attachments. Appropriate software is easy to find on the Internet.
- Photos can be saved to a private cloud provider or the SD card instead of in google / Microsoft / Apple Clouds.
- When it comes to data protection, people say: data is secure if it is backed up on 3 different devices, in three different ways. (e.g. hard drive, stick, cloud)
- Make use of your right to information. For more information, see the GDPR:
https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Datenschutz/Ueberblick/MeineRechte/MeineRechte.html - Make use of your right to have your data deleted!
