The Ethical Fine Line of Phone Apps for Children

My intention in writing this blog is not to turn parents into dictators, but to be aware of a new generation of smartphone technology that is quite troubling. There is a larger ethical question in play in regard to the question as to whether the development of phone apps should be more highly scrutinized, especially as they pertain to children.  There is an ethical fine line when it comes to phone apps for children.  Children aren’t mature enough to fully understand the challenge associated with these apps and parents need to be engaged.

Christine Elgersma writing for Common Sense Media (October 27, 2015) alerted me to a whole world of phone apps I knew nothing about. The article, entitled: “Sneaky Camera Apps Parents Should Know About,” talked about a new generation of apps such as: Private Ninja Cam, Top Secret Camera and Best Secret Folder.

Unlike Snapchat and Instagram, these apps are meant to hide the fact that pictures are being taken rather than pictures with the intention of being shared. Once taken, the pictures themselves are then hidden in secret files behind other applications; sort of like hiding something in plain sight. According to the article:

“Here are some of the methods they use to deceive the unsuspecting:

• Blanking the screen so no one knows you’re taking a picture.
• Muting the phone so the shutter doesn’t sound.
• Disguising the preview window so it looks like a web browser.
• Activating the camera to record via motion sensor.”

To gain access to the hidden photo-vaults, the apps require a password. The apps themselves are concealed behind fake software. For example, the user can load on a “fake calculator app” that while actually functioning as a calculator, has a code to allow the user to gain access to a secret vault where images may be stored. In addition, if someone other than the user attempts to access the code, an alarm can be set off.

The Ethical Set-up

The tools I describe can, of course, can be used for harmless fun; a close-up of Aunt Suzy snoring away on a chaise lounge at the family reunion. Nevertheless, the real danger is that the smartphone can become a spy camera (refer to some of the names above). Images can be taken in locker rooms, of teachers, and of themselves. What is worse, the images stay hidden and can be disseminated, used for blackmail, and used for shaming, sexting or revenge. Children are experimental and phones are ubiquitous.

Until I hear otherwise, in our over-sexualized society, with rather porous social boundaries, a 14 year-old is still a child, and he or she does not often have the developmental skills to discern between harmless fun and pornography or public humiliation. The developers realize that as well.

There are ways for parents to gain access to the security settings of any phone to see what has been uploaded. I am not desirous of parents becoming dictators, but only of being parental. You do have the right to see what is on your child’s phone.

I know a lot of parents who want to be friends with their kids rather than parents – and I had better not go down that path this minute, but it is just not cool for your child be to taking inappropriate pictures of friends, classmates or themselves and then hiding them for any number of reasons.

The Lack of Governance

Our digital technology developed so quickly and so without regulation, that 15 or 20 years after the explosion of the internet and the many, many facets of social media, we have still not caught up with all of the ethical ramifications.

Is the internet and digital technology and all of its far-flung manifestations truly to be a completely “open society,” or is there a need to reign in the development of software in an ethical sense?

If an app developer develops a spy cam device primarily marketed to children, are there ethical expectations in play? Let’s say a teenager with a poor body image is secretly photographed, and the hidden image is then widely distributed for the purpose of shaming. Let us further say that the shamed teenager does harm to themselves. Does the app developer bear ethical responsibility?

These topics have not been explored fully enough from an ethical point of view. There is a punishable crime for an adult in a position of authority (such as a school principal) having child pornography on their computer. Rightly so. What then, of the developer who has disseminated software for profit enabling secret photography in a locker room?

Yes, we can maintain an intellectual laissez fare, attitude about it all, but what if it is your child who is shamed, or your child who has taken and distributed the images?

Our technology must catch up with our sense of ethics. We must have this discussion.

YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!