My nephew, who is 14, has been visiting for the summer. As a parent of younger kids, I am not well versed in the world of teenagers. He is constantly talking and texting on his cell phone, surfing the web, has a MySpace page, set to private and is into Japanese anime. All of these tech/internet related activities got me to thinking about the safety of our kids online.

In 1998, Congress enacted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA” or “the Act”) to address privacy and safety risks created when children under 13 years of age (“children”) use the Internet. To protect children, the Act imposes requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children, and other operators with actual knowledge that they have collected personal information from children. The Act generally mandates that such operators must provide notice of their privacy policies; obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children; allow parents to review and delete personal information that their children have provided; and establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the security of personal information collected from children. (source www.privo.com)

We have all heard the horror stories about online predators and kids lying to get access to sites. So it is never too early or too late to educated ourselves and our kids about the dangers that can befall them online.

Here are some good sites for education and help related to this topic: socialnetworking.html, www.wiredkids.org, journal