Originally published on the site Children and Consumption, an initiative of Alana Institute.

The Special Report on the Right to Privacy by the United Nations (UN) opened a public consultation in order to gather opinions and research on the right of children and adolescents to privacy and how it influences child development and autonomy. The Alana Institute, through the Child and Consumption program, and InternetLab, sent a joint contribution on the theme, highlighting the importance of the right to privacy and underlining the diversity in the demands of multiple Brazilian children.

The demands, delivered to the UN on September 30, 2020, exemplified ways of violating the right to privacy and its impacts on children’s right to full development, calling attention to the practices of commercial exploitation of children in the digital environment; the collection of children’s biometric data in public services, such as hospitals and schools; and the sexual and reproductive rights of children and adolescents in their interaction with the digital environment.

With these themes, organizations show how state and political measures that lack transparency and digital security can seriously reflect on the rights of children, warning about the recent episode of the 10-year-old girl from Espírito Santo who became pregnant because of rape and had her personal data leaked during the process of seeking a legal abortion.

“Although provided for by law for these cases, judicial secrecy has been weakened in the context of an out of date justice system”, says Nathalie Fragoso, coordinator of the Privacy and Surveillance area at InternetLab. “Legal protections are proving to be insufficient and electronic systems are inadequate to prevent the leakage of sensitive information. As a result, child victims of violence are exposed and re-victimized by the publicity that the cases earn”.

The document also considers the influence of the business models of large technology companies – which commercially exploit the presence of children in the digital universe through, for example, data collection and content and advertising segmentation – to the detriment of privacy and the development of children and adolescents. It also refers to the importance that all actors in society, including states and companies, consider the best interest of children in their actions and policies.

“This is a public consultation with an international dimension and it brings a specific focus on the recognition of the existence of the different realities in which children from all over the world live, so that their demands are not considered in a homogeneous way and special attention is paid to vulnerable children,” says Pedro Hartung, coordinator of the Child and Consumption program.

“Children in situations of greater vulnerability are always the most affected by actions that violate their rights, in this case privacy, and are the most affected by predatory business models based on data that makes them the object of commercial exploitation by companies”, he adds.