Digital Education Security for Children

Computers and tablets and such are being put into schools as learning aids now. Teachers have been finding it easier to use online websites to teach kids rather than using books or boards. Websites are great because they are usually free and they are password protected. Websites take information like names, addresses, phone numbers, and even voices. To most people, a password is fine, but to people who know what they're doing, they would notice right away that there is no encryption. This problem is because there is not really a standard for security on educational websites or apps. Although, these weaknesses haven't really been exploited, they could be. It makes me think: what would someone want with the ID of someone under 13? They can't open credit cards or bank accounts. I guess someone could wait until they became of age...but that would take so long~ I mean it could lead to cyberbullying or something too? These companies though seem so greedy. They can't put the time in to make sure it's safe? I guess it makes sense to build the content for children rather than privacy or security, but children are people too and should have their information protected, even if they can't do anything.

The security thing is starting to be fixed. There's this national association made a list of security questions for schools to ask before they buy educational things from companies. Which would be very helpful, if schools choose to use them.

I feel like this problem is coming up because people trust each other too much and underestimate what others can do. No one thinks that a child can be hacked because no one would do bad things to kids. This can happen to college students too. This guy, Mr. Mayer, was taking one of those free open online courses. It was secure from the outside, but, being a member of the course, he was able to find a flaw and gain access to all names and email addresses of anyone in the online course database. Dangerous because if someone got in they can send that to other websites, advertisers, or those people that analyze you. Data mining is still a thing. Would people seriously data mine children? I'm not sure, but I guess i could be a concern that people might have?

I think children should have as much security as an adult has because I worry bad things might happen to them. But I could be overreacting.