Household & Children
Your privacy measures only hold as far as the weakest device in your home.
Children's Privacy: The Basics
- Games and apps harvest children's data as aggressively as adult apps
- Children are more likely to accept every permission request
- School platforms (Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams) collect significant data
- Social media minimum age is 13 (UK GDPR: 13 for most, 16 for some services) but rarely enforced
- Children's data profiles are built early and persist into adulthood
- UK Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code) applies to services likely used by under-18s
- Companies must apply highest privacy settings by default for children
- Profiling children for commercial purposes is restricted
- You can request deletion of your child's data under UK GDPR
- Report violations to the ICO: ico.org.uk/for-the-public/childrens-privacy
Household Checklist
Smart Home Device Audit
Every "smart" device in your home is a potential data collection point. Log them here and track what you've done about each one.
Smart TV: The Overlooked Threat
Smart TVs use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to identify every show, film, and advert you watch: and sell this data to advertisers and data brokers. It's enabled by default on virtually every smart TV.
Settings → Support → Terms & Policies → turn off "Viewing Information Services" and "Interest-Based Advertising"
Settings → All Settings → General → About This TV → User Agreements → turn off all data collection. Also: Settings → General → Live Plus → Off
Settings → Device Preferences → Usage & Diagnostics → Off. Also: Settings → About → Legal Information → Samba Interactive TV → Off
Menu → Admin & Privacy → Smart Interactivity → Off. Also: turn off "Viewing Data" in Account settings.
Settings → Preferences → Privacy Settings → turn off "Device Usage Data", "Collect App Usage Data", "Interest-Based Ads"
Settings → Privacy → Smart TV Experience → Advertising → reset advertising ID. Also: Microphone → Off for voice-enabled remotes