The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information

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Deletion on the Internet?

Strichmännchen mit Idee
Source: strichfiguren.de - Adobe Stock

As soon as your children surf the Internet, they leave traces, just like you. The first social media account is created quickly. Posting videos and photos is fun and is everyday communication today. Nobody wants to spoil the fun, but here too it is important to find the right measure. From the outset, children and adolescents should be sensitised to the fact that data once published are very difficult to delete. The Internet never forgets!

Pay attention to what your children share. The shared photos can be copied and disseminated uncontrollably. The funny — but also often intimate — details of yesterday could become problematic when looking for an apprenticeship, for example 63 % of companies collect information on the Internet. Check regularly, especially with your smaller children, what can be found on the Internet about them. Take a close look at the profiles and stored data. You should also do this with your profiles and above all with your children’s profiles.

Delete unwanted data and keep in mind that many social networks store those data and the data can therefore still be retrieved, albeit via detours. Search engines can find “old” data over and over again, depending on how often others have commented or shared them. Where necessary, exercise your right to delete data. If other persons have published your children’s data, ask them for deletion. If contacting those persons is not possible or the data are not deleted, please contact the provider of the website or the social network. If you do not get any further here, you can contact your state data protection commissioner or the data protection supervisory authority of your federal state.

Sometimes it takes longer for data to be deleted or, as mentioned above, the provider does not react at all. However, you often have the option to adjust, for example, the privacy in the settings of your profiles. Please carefully handle your data and, above all, your children’s data and consider exactly what you want to disclose permanently about yourself — and your children — on the Internet.

Involve your children in your decisions and sensitise them this way to the careful handling of their own data. The sooner, the better.