Empowering young people in today’s digital world

Last month, I had the opportunity to join the international community of privacy regulators at the 46th Annual Global Privacy Assembly. The theme of this year’s assembly was to explore how we can balance the power of information with the need for citizens to have power, control, and dignity over their personal information. 

I had the privilege of moderating a panel From the ground up: The societal impact of privacy education. Together with participants from the UK, France, Hong Kong and Canada, we explored why children’s privacy really matters, our collective responsibility to entrust children with meaningful privacy rights, and how we can educate, engage and empower them to exercise those rights. We then continued the conversation in a side-panel with representatives from UNICEF. 

We know that young people today are spending significant time online socializing, gaming, and learning. In today’s world, we need to ensure that young people understand the risks of putting their personal information and the information of others online. But we can’t download the entire responsibility onto their little shoulders. Regulators, educators and governments must do their part to protect youth from dangers as well. 

Recently, my federal, provincial and territorial (FPT) colleagues and I, released a joint resolution on identifying and mitigating harms from privacy-related deceptive design patterns, particularly those aimed at children. More and more, digital education tools offered by commercial platforms and app developers are finding their way into the classroom — for good and for ill — and the increasing use of artificial intelligence raises the stakes even more.

This FPT resolution builds on another joint resolution we adopted in 2023 calling on governments to put the privacy interests of young people first. We urged them to implement stronger privacy safeguards in today’s digital landscape that consider the needs of children and youth.

Promoting children’s privacy rights is a strategic priority at the forefront of the IPC’s agenda. Over the past four years, we’ve made significant headway in implementing initiatives in support of this priority. Our focus has been on protecting children and youth from online risks and empowering them with the supports and education they need to make good decisions when navigating the digital world.

On the heels of Digital Citizen Day on October 23, my office launched the Digital Privacy Charter for Ontario Schools. The charter outlines twelve voluntary commitments that schools can make, based on evolving best practices, to secure students’ personal information when using digital education tools. It also includes commitments to educate students about online risks, empower them to exercise their privacy rights and engage their feedback on the use of digital tools used in their classroom. 

We’ve been calling on educational institutions to take the pledge! So far, a few early adopters have demonstrated their leadership and commitment by signing on to the charter. We urge all school administrators, educators, parents, guardians, and students themselves to take action and actively support adoption of the digital privacy charter in Ontario schools. 

The charter aligns with Bill 194, the Strengthening Cyber Security and Building Trust in the Public Sector Act.  The bill calls for improved protections for children and young people affected by the use of digital technologies in schools. While the bill represents an important step forward, our office submitted extensive recommendations on how Bill 194 can be improved. We stressed the need for standards that respect the rights of young people and are consistent with the values of personal autonomy, dignity, and individual self-determination. We called for children’s personal information to be deemed sensitive, with a corresponding higher duty to protect it. And we called for streamlined, consistent and coherent regulatory oversight. On November 14, during my appearance before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, I zeroed in on the most critical issues we believe must be addressed in Bill 194.

My office has worked on several other initiatives over the past few years to champion the privacy and access rights of young people and promote their digital literacy. For example, we collaborated with MediaSmarts to develop classroom-ready lesson plans based on the Privacy Pursuit! activity booklet we developed for kids. These lesson plans directly support the Ontario provincial curriculum, which was recently updated to emphasize digital literacy and citizenship skills across all primary grades, including a focus on online privacy and safety.

The IPC also created a Youth Advisory Council (YAC) of ten young people between the ages of 15 and 25 to provide our office with guidance and advice on how best to reach out and communicate with this younger demographic from their perspective. We regularly hear from them about their lived experiences and their need to learn how to navigate today’s digital world safely. With their direct input, we developed a Youth Ambassador Toolkit to provide youth with resources they can use to educate their peers about the importance of privacy rights and an Instagram channel to offer quick tips to children and young people about privacy. We also invited YAC members to come speak directly with our FPT colleagues at our annual meeting, which we were honored to host in Ontario this year. Having a frank conversation between regulators and young people was refreshing and important to hear firsthand. 

To date, we have dedicated seven episodes of our award-winning Info Matters podcast to children’s privacy and another focused on teens, available on our website, Apple podcasts or Spotify. Stay tuned for our newest episode — out this month — featuring an interview with Anthony Carabache, a staff officer with the Ontario Catholic Teachers Associations’ professional development department about the use of technology, including AI, in the classroom. More to come on that!

As we look ahead, we have a valuable opportunity to provide young people with the knowledge, resources, and skills to embrace a digital future with curiosity, confidence and competence. In the words of American writer William Arthur Ward, “Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts; it is acquiring understanding.” 

I look forward to our continued collaborations and collective efforts to advancing children’s privacy rights in Ontario and beyond.

— Patricia