Snooping is not a good way to keep kids safe online

livemint.com:

Recently, reports emerged that India’s ministry of electronics and IT has been working on an app, Safenet, that links parents’ phones with those of their children, so that they can monitor the online activities of their offspring. While parental controls on internet platforms typically offer options of granting app or website access and placing limits on the time spent, Safenet is said to go further by sharing call details and SMS logs, apart from data on all content viewed on platforms like YouTube. The Internet Service Provider Association of India has suggested that this app should be made available by default on all personal devices.

This proposal is a classic example of techno-solutionism, an attempt to use technology to solve a complex social problem. Online safety for kids is a complicated issue, with debates over the overall impact of internet usage on children. Since this impact is highly context-dependent, policymakers present a strong argument that any ‘duty of care’ in the online environment should rest primarily with parents, just as it does in the physical environment.

However, the devil always lies in the details. First, in the physical environment too, parents do not have complete control over a child’s information ecosystem. Parents are often in fact surprised to discover how much their children know, because they do not control all their interactions in school either with peers or their environment.