More on kids, and Sweden is ahead of the trend as is normal on children’s rights.
There is a new law (barnkonventionen svensk lag) being discussed which looks as though it will be effective in 2020 which basically means that parents are not permitted to post pictures of their children online without their permission.
This came to my notice following a Post I made on a private group on Facebook informing that it was against human rights and a right to a private life to Post pictures of children and any individual should not be posted without their permission. I made this Post because I was horrified (although not surprised) to find that someone had posted a video of a couple of teenagers on mopeds on the island (where I live) driving too fast, and was asking who they were. The culprits were uncovered. In main she was praised for stopping them, names were mentioned, until the mother popped up in the thread.
This reminded me of something which happens in China, a practice called ‘cyber manhunt‘. An individual does something bad, and a hunt is initiated to find him/her via social networks and other connected means, once found their life is made a misery.
In this closed group there were almost a 1000 members. So the 2 teenagers were publicly exposed. They did something wrong, but it doesn’t matter, they didn’t deserve public humiliation. I also wonder that if adults are posting these kind of videos online of kids, then clearly kids will not hesitate to do the same.. consequences can be fatal -if a child takes their life due to something posted on them to which they have not agreed to.
It is therefore, a delightful development, the new law which protects kids in the digital age, connected age. How this will work in practice, we will see. From a practical perspective, just wondering how an under 5 will be able to consent to their pictures being posted online. But I’m sure there is something in the legal text which covers this…