Information Technology Acts Paper
Natasha Bright-Wight
BIS/220
April 21, 2014
Marty Mueller

Information Technology Acts Paper
I chose to research the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. Both are similar in comparison but still both serve different issues to help with the advances in information technology and ethical issues that arise. With all these changes that are happening there have been necessary Acts that needed to be passed to protect the public. For both of these, companies have used marketing strategies to find out more and more information of people. Also, there has been identity theft that has occurred more because of personal information that has been put on the internet and shared and passed around. Children are having more and more access to the internet, and internet games.
Both Acts deal with the same advances in information technology that resulted in ethical issues, making it very necessary to sign these Acts into Law. We have many computer networks, such as the Internet, smart phones and regular cell phones, and search engines, such as Google being used by everyone now, including children. Parents don’t watch their children’s internet activities and phone activities as closely as they should. Organizations have increasing amounts of data that can be stored and much cheaper now. There are more and more employees and people who have access to people’s personal information in the work place now, which effects how much information is being shared and transferred from one person or company to the next. Marketing companies are buying from and sharing people’s personal information with many other companies today. Some other advances are public surveillance cameras, credit card transactions, banking transactions, and telephone calls that are being recorded and shared.
The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 was signed to require school and libraries to have better internet security against children below the age of 17 to limit them to what they see on the internet and what sites they are allowed on. (Cannon, Marc) These are sites that may otherwise be harmful to children. They wanted to ensure their computers had security filters, and be able to monitor activities that they do online and prevent children hackers that try to get personal information from children about them or their parents. Children use more computers now for school projects and research and then they get on social networks like Facebook, and Myspace, and parents don’t always pay attention to what they are getting on. There are porn websites, and child molesters and all sorts of people and organizations that are trying to use children. This act also is intended to reassure that children are limited on how much violent or obscene material is seen on the Web. There also some people who are putting obscene pictures of children on the Web after they get this information from the children. ACCU and other people tried to say that this kind of filtering was unconstitutional, but after careful research and parents, and other peoples’ insistence they were able to pass it into Law.
The Children’s Online Privacy Act of 1998 is intended the same, to ensure the protection of children, but this time it points towards watching how much personal children’s information is being collected and ho has to have permission to even use this information. This protects children under 13, and “requires commercial websites and inline services to request parental consent for the collection, use, and disclosure of a child’s personal information.” (Landsberg, 2004) Marketers were targeting children and large amounts of children’s information was being released. This Act was intended to increase parents’ involvement also and make them be more aware of their children’s activities and how much information they share, because children did not understand why they shouldn’t be sharing their information or their parent’s information, and the effects of it. “This law required websites and companies to: 1) incorporate a detailed privacy policy that describes the information collected from its users, 2) receive verifiable consent from the parents, 3) offer parents an opportunity to revoke consent and have personal information deleted, 4) limit the collection of personal information from children participating in online games, and 5) establish reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of any personal information collected from children” (Landsberg, 2004)
These acts were all based around protecting children’s and their parents’ personal information from being used unlawfully and from harm. Some online games and programs tried to bribe children into giving their parents information by offering winning points to the game, etc. (Cannon, July) With XBOX Live, kids having cell phones that get on the web, increasing children’s access to illegal materials, computer games, and more; these Acts were necessary to protect our children’s minds and prevent illegal actions and identify theft from happening, and harm happening to our children. The need to protect our social security numbers, addresses, names, phone numbers, emails and more, is important to ensure protection against all the information technology that is increasingly advancing more every day.

References
Cannon, R. (July 2000). Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Trade Journals, 14(7), 40-42.
Cannon, R. (March 2001). Children's Internet Protection Act. Trade Journals, 15(3), 40-42.
Landsberg, B. K. (2004). Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act(1998), Major Acts of Congress-pg. 80-82. New York, NY: Macmillian Reference USA.