‘Dad! Cut that Part Out!’ Children’s Rights to Privacy in the Age of ‘Generation Tagged’: Sharenting, Digital Kidnapping and the Child Micro-Celebrity’

Abstract

Westernised societies have become familiar with social and digital media. Children born since the turn of the twenty-first century, known more informally as ‘millennials’, have grown up in an age where social media has been a part of the everyday lives of many families. In what has become known as ‘sharenting’, parents can easily post images and video clips of their children on social media sites. Some parents do this by setting up social media accounts in their child’s name or by using their own social media profiles. Some parents engage in ‘blogging’ and ‘vlogging’ or have created a YouTube Channel, on which they display the daily activity of their family including their children. Some parents engage their children in fly-on-the-wall documentaries which are broadcast on television. Intimate parts of children’s lives can therefore be easily exposed without their knowledge or consent, without consideration of the risks involved and without an appreciation of what their children’s wishes might be in the future, once they become adults.