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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

> I can’t help but feel bad for the kids in this situation.

I feel worse for the kids whose parents don't care and have all their information collected before they're old enough to know better. They're handing children chromebooks and letting google collect their kid's test scores so they can sort children into 'smart' and 'dumb' buckets before they're out of primary school, letting youtube and tiktok babysit them the way previous generations did with television, making them carry cell phones at younger and younger ages etc.

I think there's some solid middle ground there, but those kids will be much better off having been made aware of the issues and having their information at least somewhat protected.

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OP here. My kids know "Mommy doesn't like Google." If we were totally restrictive and opaque about it, it might feel like living in a cult. But I use data privacy techniques to teach our kids about how systems work, where data flows, how computers process information, and how to implement home-grown alternatives. Otherwise they'll think an Alexa "just works" when they talk to it, or that they're a "digital native" just because they can swipe on a gesture-based interface. They will grow up and make their own choices: my hope is to prepare them with a better understanding of how systems work under the hood, a richer grasp of the history of surveillance in society--and a relatively clean slate data trail.

Yea, it sucks for the kids whose parents do not care at all, but this has been the status quo for a long time with things like lack of involvement with education and just putting the kid in front of the TV. Obviously neither extreme is beneficial, but surely privacy neurosis will rub off on the kids and and more dangerously isolate them socially.

I do agree that it's a part of the environment kids will grow up in, so it's important to teach them to careful. Just like how it's important to teach kids to look both ways before crossing the street, to not play in street, and to be increasingly mindful the busier the roads are, but I wouldn't call that "traffic neurosis" or worry that it will cause them to be dangerously isolated and unable to navigate a city.

Kids can be educated about the dangers of data collection, be mindful about the data they are giving companies and aware of how ways that data will be used against them so that they can make smarter choices without cutting themselves off from the world they have to navigate and be a part of.

Can you provide a source for Google 'bucketing' kids based on their test scores?

Do you think ethics would stop them? You should always assume that if a company can do something that will increase their profits, legal or otherwise, they will.

The Samsung keyboard that shipped with my cell phone was sending every single letter I typed to a third party whose privacy policy said explicitly they used that data for market research and to make determinations about the intelligence and level of education of the user. Companies are collecting analytics and monitoring people while they play video games which is then being used to group them into categories.

Lists of people with low intelligence, poor education, alzheimer’s or dementia are extremely valuable and data brokers are happy to sell them to advertisers and scammers. Google just put themselves in a position to collect that kind of data as early as possible. Why would you expect them not to use it?

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