Your child’s data is big business. If there is one truth parents must understand, it’s this: your child’s data is more valuable than your own. While adults view data collection as an annoyance, corporations see children’s data as a long-term investment—one that pays dividends for decades. In Privacy Is Possible, I argue that when a company gains access to children’s behavioural patterns early, it builds a blueprint of who that child may become as a consumer, and potentially as a citizen
This is the part most parents never see: when companies track children, they’re not just selling toys or games—they’re shaping lifelong preferences. This is why your child’s data is big business.
Why Companies Want Your Child’s Data
Children offer four things corporations crave:
1. Predictability
Kids repeat behaviours more consistently than adults. This makes their data easier to model.
2. Emotional openness
Children express emotions freely—joy, frustration, excitement—which helps platforms fine-tune algorithms.
3. Lifetime value
A child brought into a brand ecosystem at age eight may remain a customer for 40+ years.
4. Influence over family spending
Children shape how parents spend money on food, entertainment, travel, technology, and clothing.
From toys to streaming apps to educational platforms, companies collect:
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Search histories
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Emotional reactions
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Behavioural routines
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Voice recordings
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Facial expressions
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Geo-location data
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In-app purchases
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School performance metrics
This data forms a detailed map of your child’s personality, preferences, and vulnerabilities because your child’s data is big business.
How This Data Is Used: Because Your Child’s Data Is Big Business
Corporate algorithms use childhood data to:
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Predict future buying behaviour
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Tailor emotional content
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Influence long-term brand loyalty
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Target insecurities
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Determine what ads children and teens see
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Shape their media ecosystem
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Push psychological triggers
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Build high-value advertising profiles
This is not a conspiracy—it’s standard business practice.
The Hidden Risk: Data Never Expires
Once data is collected, it is:
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Sold
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Shared
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Combined
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Enriched
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Stored
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Repurposed
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Re-analysed with new AI tools
Children grow up, but their digital footprint remains frozen in time.
An embarrassing search history at age 10 could influence targeted ads at age 20. A behavioural profile built in childhood might shape what job ads they see as adults.
How Parents Can Stop the Exploitation
1. Limit the number of apps your child uses.
Each app is a new data pipeline.
2. Turn off location sharing for every platform.
Only enable it when absolutely needed.
3. Delete apps that your child no longer uses.
Old apps leak data silently.
4. Use privacy-focused browsers for homework and research.
Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and Brave are excellent starts.
5. Reduce your own sharing.
Parents are often the biggest contributors to their kids’ digital identities.
6. Demand transparency from schools.
Ask what data is collected, how long it’s kept, and who it’s shared with.
7. Teach children that data is power.
If they understand value, they will protect it.
Academic Reference
Nissenbaum, H. (2019). Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life. Stanford University Press.
Book Recommendation
📚 “Talking Back to Facebook” by James P. Steyer
A parent-focused look at how companies target young people and what families can do to protect themselves.
Attention Parents, Teachers, and School Administrators! The author is a professor at Stanford, where he teaches civil rights, civil liberties, and children’s issues. He is the CEO of Common Sense Media. He has strong credentials, but his highest is the fact that he has four kids…all digital natives.
The book is a MUST-read if you are a parent, but it also offers outstanding guideposts and advice for questions most parents are -or should be – asking. He tackles hard issues straight-on and avoids being patronising or unrealistic about the range of choices and decisions both children and parents must make in today’s technology-driven social and educational environments. I found different sections of this book appealed to me as an educator, father, and grandparent of a 4-year-old with another due in the Fall.
To give you a flavour of his thesis, he addresses digital media issues based on the acronym RAP – Relationships, Attention/Addiction, and Privacy. His rule of thumb for living in the Digital Age (where data never dies)- which I’ve already quoted to my teachers, some parents, and my Sunday school class – is that children/students/teens must learn (be taught) to SELF-REFLECT before they SELF-REVEAL.
In his classes at Stanford, he has observed that today’s students are less able to concentrate, write well, think coherently, or synthesise information than students of a few years ago. Also, his students appear to have shorter attention spans and diminished memory capacity. Yes, he blames over-use and over-reliance on technology. And yes, it can be fixed.