Control

In the digital age, children’s participation rights and their rights to privacy are circumscribed in ways that evade scrutiny, as parents and public authorities use digital technologies to exercise control over children’s online and offline movements. Driven by a contradictory mix of legitimate fears and moral panics about the online and offline risks faced by, and posed by, children, these legislative and technological apparatus of control position children as both objects in need of protection and unruly agents that warrant adult (pre-crime) monitoring and control.