Matthew Carrera

Per. 2

12-11

Should Teens Have the Same Rights to Privacy as Adults?

The topic of teen privacy is a hot debate: Lisa Damour, writer for the New York Times,

says in her article, “Is Snooping on Teenagers Ever O.K.?”, “Adolescence comes with a thorny

problem: Teenagers suddenly yearn for privacy just when their lives are expanding to include a

range of risky new opportunities.” Teen’s rights have been changing over the years with new

technologies and ways of life. One major right that is discussed if teen privacy and how to

protect the teen and keep them safe. While we should all be protected, adults and teens alike,

teen privacy should not be infringed for the righteous cause of keeping them safe. Teens should

have the same right to privacy as adults.

Increases to security and surveillance technology in schools for the sole purpose of

monitoring students in their own school is a dangerous invasion of privacy. “This week the

district’s eight public schools began testing a system called Aegis, which includes facial

recognition technology, that could eventually be used to track and map student movement in our

schools” (Shultz 1). This system is dangerous and has potentially long lasting effects. The facial

recognition could be dangerous to a student’s reputation because it does not work correctly on

women and people of color. Furthermore, the ability of the system to track who certain

individuals were around can lead to a guilty by association accusations and punishments. “In

2015, in the wake of Sandy Hook and other high-profile school shootings, our district was
approached by Tony Olivo, a security consultant, who offered to do a free threat assessment of

our schools” (Shultz 1). The strategic timing of Mr. Olivo’s shady, thinly veiled sales pitch

shows that the birth of the idea of using this security system comes from fear and money. The

original purpose of the system was to catch cheaters and thieves in casinos. The Aegis system is

not a system that should be used in schools.

On another note, teens should have the same rights to privacy as adults because, when

their privacy is invaded, they have very adult reactions. “‘When parents engage in behaviors that

teenagers see as privacy invasions’ Dr. Hawk said,’It backfires because parents end up knowing

less’” (Damour 2). When teens have their privacy invaded by a parent, they begin taking steps to

protect themselves. Commonly, the invaded teen will stop being as sharing and open with their

parents, and start hiding aspects of their personal life. “A survey of 455 adolescents found that

teenagers who believed their parents had secretly listened in on their conversations or searched

through their possessions without permission shared less information with their folks than

teenagers who felt their parents respected appropriate boundaries” (Damour 2). In addition to

teens not trusting parents who snoop, research on Dutch families has shown that teens of

invasive parents were not​ misbehavin​g any more that those with parents who do not snoop.

Some say, “Parents have a right to survei their own children” (Damour 1). This is true,

however, Avidian Cover, an associate law professor at Case Western Reserve University tells us,

“Those rights don’t always extend to other children or adults. They can get into murky legal

territory if they find themselves surveilling other participants in a conversation” (Damour 1).

When parents intrude on a teen’s life, they can find themselves intruding on the lives of other

teens. If they find themselves watching their child’s interactions with another child, the legality
of the situation becomes questionable. How does this affect their child? It drives them away.

Evidence, as stated earlier, has consistently shown that teens of parents who snoop start to shut

out their parents from their private lives. Overbearing parents running the lives of their children

is a mental handicap at best. At its worst, it produces a society of dependent adults who will have

no hope of a successful private life.

Teens should be trusted to keep themselves safe and expect the same privacy rights as

adults. Intrusive, dangerous surveillance technology will do more harm to the safety of students

in schools, as will covert intrusions of their lives by parents. The law should protect teens when

their privacy is unfairly disregarded. That is the way we should protect teens.