Investigating the balance of privacy versus security in a family environment

With the growing fear surrounding children's online safety, parents and caregivers have turned to technology for support through monitoring apps and parental controls.

However, parents face the internal conflict of recognising their child's desire for autonomy and respect while also experiencing a desire to keep their children safe.

In contrast, children have stated that monitoring apps have negatively impacted their relationship with their parents as they do not feel trusted.

Thus, the current design of parental controls has resulted in children not feeling respected and heard, while parents feel they lack the capability to make security decisions as a family efficiently.

This research aims to explore how the design of parental controls within technology can influence a family's security decision making, with a focus on the trust, privacy, and security elements of parental controls and children's rights to privacy.

A mixed methodology approach will be applied, using qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyse the data.

The intended contribution of this project would be the development of a design that provides parents with a better opportunity to balance respecting their children's autonomy while also providing appropriate security features to protect their children.