Leah Plunkett

Law lecturer Leah Plunkett says parents are unwittingly compromising their children’s privacy online before they can walk and sometimes before they are even born.

Parents are sharing ultrasound images online, first pictures from hospital, storing baby photographs in the cloud, and using digital baby monitors with artificial intelligence. At school, there are cards recording food purchases, bus passes that track movement, electronic health records and school surveillance systems. Plunkett looks at the risks of adults’ excessive sharing of children’s data and argues for a new attitude to children based not on recording every detail digitally but on ‘play, forget, connect and respect’.

Plunkett is associate dean for administration, associate professor of legal skills, and director of academic success at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

This event is part of the festival’s programme of American literature and culture.

In association with MIT Press.