Children’s Right to Privacy

Abstract

This chapter examines how (if at all) children’s right to privacy is concretely implemented in the legal realm. It considers children’s privacy when they are involved in legal proceedings, children’s privacy in schools, children’s online privacy, children’s involvement with media publicity, and children’s right to confidential medical advice and treatment. It also considers children’s privacy in their relationship with their parents, focusing on parents’ surveillance and monitoring of their children and parents’ use of social media in a manner that involves their children. Existing legal policies and rules across these contexts fail to carve out a space where children can be free from constant adult gaze and supervision. This chapter argues that there is insufficient research about children’s needs and interests in privacy, and where research does exist lawmakers fail to take notice of its findings; privacy theories are mainly adult-centered and cannot adequately be applied to children; and family law conceptions still focus on parental authority, and around the idea of “the family” as a unit.