I M A G E B Y T Y L I M

technologies and big data on children
• Understanding who decides what
data is collected
• Understanding how algorithms
process data
• Understanding who owns and uses
data and for what
• Understanding how children’s data
is shared (sometimes by parents) and the
impacts of sharing
• Educating about issues and impacts
based on age, maturity, culture, and
income level
• The difficulty of predicting the
consequences of technology and data
use.

A specific consideration brought
up during discussions was that some
groups of children would likely be
at greater risk for data misuse than
others, for example, children at risk of
participating in dangerous activities
or children who are more likely to
struggle academically. While big data
could help identify these children so
they can get help, these identifications
could also have negative consequences.

Therefore, there is a need to carefully consider what actions to take and what data-access and persistence policies to recommend or adopt in these situations.

More broadly, outside the school
context, there was a discussion of the
need for ethics recommendations or
guidelines directed to organizations
with access to children’s data, and of
the possibility of regulation. However,
such guidance is not straightforward to
provide or implement. Many scenarios
raise ethical dilemmas that require
considering the trade-offs between
potential benefits and negative impacts,
acknowledging that some impacts
may be unforeseeable. For example,
smartphones that track children’s
locations provide the benefit of safety
through surveillance, which could
of these issues, and the fact that these
technologies are not neutral, as they
reflect the socioeconomic and political
systems in which they are embedded
and the values and goals of those who
control them.

OUTCOMES OF THE SIG DISCUSSION

Even though attendees of the SIG
divided into four groups to discuss the
topics outlined here, all four groups,
individually and then collectively,
noted the importance of education
in addressing the challenges and
opportunities brought by ubiquitous
computing and big data for child-
computer interaction. The view of
education in the discussions was broad,
focusing not solely on children but also
on the adults involved in their lives, in
the classroom and beyond. This broad
view included both adults teaching
children and children teaching adults
(e.g., children educating their parents).
Attendees identified critical issues
needing to be addressed in the realm of
education:
• The possible impacts of ubiquitous

A range of children’s
activities now include
the use of computers,
and with their use
comes data collection,
storage, and analysis.