Nudging Children and Adolescents toward Online Privacy: An Ethical Perspective

ABSTRACT The widespread practices of data collection by third-party actors pose challenges to children’s and adolescents’ privacy when they navigate digital environments. Given that the informed-consent paradigm has largely failed in online contexts, nudging seems to be a promising alternative intervention to make internet users more privacy sensitive. At the same time, nudging faces sharp criticism, suggesting it violates various ethical values. In this paper, we present an ethical evaluation of nudges targeting children’s and adolescents’ information privacy. We identify three core ethical values that nudging potentially violates: personal autonomy, human dignity, and sustainable well-being. Focusing on personal autonomy, we then demonstrate that the autonomy of minors cannot be violated by nudging in the same way as that of adults. As a conclusion, practical implications in designing and implementing privacy nudges targeting minors are suggested.