Welcome to Cyber Dad

Hi! I'm Kevin Collier. I've been a professional cybersecurity and privacy reporter for more than a decade, a career I'm blessed to have. A few months ago, I welcomed my first child into the world.

While my job has always been fascinating, having a kid gives a new urgency to the stuff I cover. Even before he was born, there were people I don't know, working at companies I can't name, gathering information about my son. They bundle it up, compare notes, make inferences that may or may not be accurate, and sell it to each other. They have little incentive to keep that data safe, and are liable to get hacked and leak my kid's information about my kid into the cybercriminal underworld. Most of what these companies do is legal — or at least, it usually isn't explicitly illegal and therefore isn’t going to be prosecuted.

This is the simple reality of practically every child in America. That bothers the hell out of me.

There are so many resources out there for parents, but precious few specifically and thoughtfully aimed at helping parents keep their kids' information safe online. Fortunately, I talk to privacy and cybersecurity experts for a living.

For weeks now, I've been chatting with them, particularly ones I know have kids of their own, asking for advice. Most people don't get to do this, and it feels selfish to not share what I've learned. Hence, this newsletter. In the coming weeks, I want to share with you some tips and insight on topics like:

• Who gets custody of your kid's image?

• How to reduce what data brokers know about your child — or at least muddy the waters.

• Picking a baby monitor that minimizes the chance that creeps can stare at them while they sleep.

• How you can lead by example as a privacy-conscious parent.

• Should you use apps that track your baby's feeding and poop cycles?

A few notes on my outlook here:

Sometimes a privacy or security issue has what appears to me to be a definitive solution. In those cases, I'm going to come out and say it and why I think that’s true. But far more often, these things are very muddy. In those cases, I'll do my best to lay out pros and cons, or to game out multiple options, with the hope that it eases your decision-making process as a parent.

I have become a big believer that children should be able to consent to what gets posted about them online. Obviously every parent makes a lot of decisions for their child. But when possible, I want to err on the side of letting the kid have custody of their faces and personal information online. If they want to showcase themselves when they're older, they're welcome to on their own terms.

But advice is useless if it's too impractical. I personally know some privacy maximalists who go to extreme lengths: They either don't own a smartphone or have a phone plan, or they refrain from all social media. Or they run their own email services from home. Or buy their home through a shell company to hide from marketers. If that's you, great! But I also want to meet everyday parents halfway, and I realize that either financial constraints or simply engaging in modern life requires us to make some privacy compromises. I'm interested in advice that most people can take.

Something I've learned in my years covering cybersecurity is that one of the best ways to think about online dangers is something called "threat modeling." That means that rather than trying to take absolutely every possible step to protect yourself, you take a deep breath and try to imagine what your biggest dangers are. You then craft a plan to counter them specifically. Whenever possible, I want to game out why you might want to take a step to protect your kid's privacy — or why one might not be worth the effort.

Say that your threat is pedophiles or AI finding and downloading pictures of your kid — that's a very real worry. But to stop them, you don't need to throw your phone in the ocean or move to an isolated cabin with no wifi. A more tailored solution involves thinking hard about who you send photos to, what websites you post them to, the sharing permissions you set on those websites, and to obscure the faces of any kid you post. 

A little housekeeping: My employer has a generous parental leave policy, at least by American standards, which is the only way I have the time to do this (in-between naps). This is purely a personal project, and it doesn't represent the company I work for. I am an American, and for practical purposes I'm coming at this from a US-centric approach, especially when it comes to privacy laws (or the lack thereof in this country). There is no paywall, and I'm not asking for or accepting any money or other compensation for this. I'm just putting it out there in hopes it helps a few parents with an issue I worry about. 

Finally, I want this to be a two-way street. If you have a parental privacy issue I might be able to help illuminate or solve, let me know at [email protected].