VIC Child Safety - Legalities Around Monitoring Child's Internet Access?

[Sonny_Jim]

Hi there,

I'm considering setting up myself as a Child Safety Online Consultant and had a thought about the legalities of monitoring the child's internet access.

AFAICS, there shouldn't be any legal issues but I thought I would just double check before I ventured further down the path:

1. What are the legalities of installing a screen recording/key logging software on a device a child uses? As the parent 'owns' the device I can't see this being a problem

2. Is there an Australian equivalent of COPPA?
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act - Wikipedia

 

[Tim W]

Please clarify something for me.

• What are the qualifications one needs in order to hold oneself out as competent in this field?
  I ask because if you are not familiar with the statutory context of your area of work,
  then I am not sure how you can go into the market claiming to know what you'd doing?
  
  
• How do you propose to indemnify yourself against claims by parents when you work is ineffective (let alone negligent)?

Or, are you just selling monitoring software, and using a puffed up job title?

 

[Sonny_Jim]

Please clarify something for me.

Sure...

What are the qualifications one needs in order to hold oneself out as competent in this field?

No idea, after the little amount of research I've done, there doesn't seem to be any. As I'll be working directly with the parents rather than the children, I don't think I'll need any specific qualifications/vetting

I ask because if you are not familiar with the statutory context of your area of work,
then I am not sure how you can go into the market claiming to know what you'd doing?

It's called learning and research I plan to educate myself before selling these services, as you can see I am at the very early stages of this so one of the first things I'm looking into is the various legal issues (if any). I have a long standing background in IT network support, so I already understand the 'nuts & bolts' of how to accomplish content filtering/monitoring.

How do you propose to indemnify yourself against claims by parents when you work is ineffective (let alone negligent)?

Good question and this was one of the thoughts that spurred me to come to a legal forum such as this to ask for advice. I believe that no amount of content filtering cannot replace proper monitoring by an adult and will make it abundantly clear that this is the case. I'm not looking to sell a 'silver bullet', rather to help educate the parents via the course material I have and offer device/service setup.

I'm fully aware that a few parents will think that keeping their child safe online is something that they can just pay someone else to do for them and forget about it and am factoring this in.

Or, are you just selling monitoring software, and using a puffed up job title?

No, I won't be selling any software, rather I'll be providing an education and setup service to bewildered parents. If you can think of a better job title, I'm all ears.

So the question is, is there any other legalities I should be looking into? You've highlighted liability which is something I have already started to consider.

 

[MartyK]

No, I won't be selling any software, rather I'll be providing an education and setup service to bewildered parents.

Do you mean your service will be installing your own (?) monitoring software on the child's device and the software would give you, not their parents, 24 hour surveillance and access to their child's computer and internet activities?

Would the software be designed to block certain content (such as parental controls would) or is it to 'spy' on what the kids are doing so reports can be made back to parents? Would the software allow you to communicate from your end with the child (such as happens in some monitoring software schools use for student devices)?

I think you will have several legal hurdles to overcome here...

 

[Sonny_Jim]

Do you mean your service will be installing your own (?) monitoring software on the child's device

No. At this moment in time I'm looking into using several freely available technologies, one being OpenDNS which blocks access via a blacklist, which isn't 100% effective as new sites are appearing all the time. The 'good' news is that as OpenDNS is a large and firmly established company, their blacklist is continually updated. It also allows the parent to add specific sites to that blacklist.

the software would give you, not their parents, 24 hour surveillance and access to their child's computer and internet activities?

No, the screen monitoring technology I am looking into using would be locked to the local network, so would only operate when you are using the same physical network as the childs device (ie at home, using the WiFi router). This is so the parent does not have to physically sit with the child on the computer, rather they can sit on the couch/working at their desk and have a duplicate of the childs screen on their laptop screen/mobile phone for casual monitoring.

I am not envisaging using remote support tools as this is a whole can of worms, the idea is to educate the parents and provide them with technologies for *them* to monitor their childs usage, not for me to monitor it.

Would the software be designed to block certain content (such as parental controls would)

Again, I'll point out that I'll be using a range of different software and parental controls that are already present in a lot of devices. For example, with Windows 10 and Xbox One, it's possible to setup a weekly report that emails you a list of visited sites, which applications have been used, setup screen time so the child can only access the device during certain times of the day and for an allotted time.

There is already a whole host of options that are already present in a lot of operating systems, my aim is to make the parents aware of these options and guide them on their usage.

is it to 'spy' on what the kids are doing so reports can be made back to parents?

My belief is that there has to be a certain element of trust and communication between the parents and child. For example, I feel that keylogging software would be massively intrusive and counterproductive, because it would breach the trust between the parent and child. I would heavily advise the parents to discuss with their child *why* their internet is now 'locked down' and provide them with resources to do so. There is a balance between outright 'spying' and 'monitoring usage', which we will need to achieve.

As a hypothetical example, if I was approached by a parent to secretly monitor a childs activity online, as the parent thinks they are in an appropriate relationship, I would refuse. Morally, it's bad, legally, it's even worse for me.

One aspect of this I will have to consider is what happens if during the course of my consultation I discover illegal activities (ie the child is buying drugs from the darknet, involved in cyberbulling etc etc). From what I understand, I will have a legal responsibility to report this to the relevant authorities.

Would the software allow you to communicate from your end with the child (such as happens in some monitoring software schools use for student devices)?

I would not be directly liaising with the child, as previously said the aim is to make the parents aware of the technologies available and provide assistance in setting up these technologies.

I think you will have several legal hurdles to overcome here...

I agree, which is why I'm doing a *lot* of research at this point, but I don't think it's insurmountable and I believe that there is a massive gap in the market for these kinds of services.

A good resource I've found so far is the Office of the eSafety Children's commisioner, which also provides certification, but it seems to be more geared toward school visits, rather than one-on-one home visits.

eSafety Homepage