PETALING JAYA: By embracing smarter privacy tools and understanding the risks of oversharing, parents can ensure their children’s digital footprint stays safe and secure, says an expert.
Prof Dr Olaf Groth, Honorary Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, argued that minimum protection is needed to empower parents to set boundaries around what is acceptable for their kids.
“For example, as a parent, I create a privacy charter for my daughter that keeps her data off-limits – things like GPS tracking or facial recognition. I set the rules and the digital service providers have to follow them.”
Groth called this “conditional data access agent”, a tool that allows parents to determine what kind of data a child is allowed to leave on the Internet.
The problem, though, is that too many parents unknowingly enable abuse by oversharing images of their children, exposing them to image recognition technology.
“So when you see parents putting dots over their kids’ faces before posting pictures, that’s the right move. It protects them from being scanned and sold without consent.”
Groth also pointed out the power of AI in tracking and protecting children’s images online such as by watermarking to make them searchable.
He explained that once an image is watermarked, it can be legally protected as digital property, allowing the owner to take legal action if the image is misused.
Meanwhile, Prof Datuk Dr Mohamed Ridza Wahiddin, chair of the Information Technology and Computer Science Discipline at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, is clear that parental consent is essential before sharing anything online about children.“The use of children’s data should be limited to necessary purposes such as education or healthcare to prevent misuse.
“Strong security measures, such as encryption and restricted access, should be in place to safeguard this information,” he added.Mohamed Ridza also believes that current laws are already sufficient to address such concerns.
“Although there may not be a specific law, action can still be taken based on existing laws depending on the situation and circumstances.
“Charges can be brought under any of these laws based on the nature of the case,” he said.
