Field Notes

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Rethinking Youth Privacy

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Danielle Keats Citron and Ari Ezra Waldman’s 2025 Virginia Law Review article (111 Va. L. Rev. 1429) argues that the parental control model — the ecosystem of laws, practices, and ideologies that give parents authority over children’s privacy — is a failure that serves industry rather than children.

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Core argument

The parental control model is erected in the name of children but mostly excludes youth and their privacy interests. It is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”: an empowering facade that leaves parents unable to protect children and undermines the intimate privacy youth need to thrive.

Three failures:

  • It doesn’t protect. No parent can meaningfully curtail corporate data collection. By age 13, ad firms hold an average of 72 million data points per child. Parental consent is a fig leaf for industry.
  • It harms vulnerable children. LGBTQ+ youth whose parents discover their identity through monitoring are at risk of homelessness and abuse.
  • It undermines the privacy adolescents need to develop. Intimate privacy is a prerequisite for autonomy, identity formation, and close relationships. Parental surveillance erodes trust and increases concealment, putting youth at greater risk from the hazards that worry parents and policymakers.

Proposed alternative

The authors propose shifting from exclusive parental control to structural reform focused on corporate responsibility, with parents acting as partners rather than surveillance agents. Their four principles: respect for youth voices, structural reform, collaboration, and support.

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