The APDCAT publishes two new downloadable stories to raise awareness among children about the dangers of sharing personal data and warn of the risks of ‘sharenting’

The Catalan Data Protection Authority has made available to the public two new downloadable stories for children between 7 and 11 years old, to make them aware of the risks of sharing personal data. The parrot and The kind tiger, which have been published coinciding with the next celebration of the Day of Sant Jordi, move the reader to places full of nature and animal life, to share the experiences of their protagonists.

On the one hand, The Parrot revolves around the adventures of a parrot known to everyone in the park, who spends the day explaining his private life. A falcon that arrives lost and famous will take advantage of the information to put its integrity at risk. The story wants to emphasize the need to be prudent and aware when giving private information to others, because third partiescan use it with bad intentions.

On the other hand, The Kind Tiger focuses on the risks of shared parenting or sharenting, which refers to the practice of sharing on the internet and social networks information related to the different stages of growth of children. And it does so through the story of a tiger and his family, who, proud of their birth, inform the rest of the inhabitants of the jungle of the evolution of the cub. The story wants to serve to convey the impact that sharing personal data can represent, as well as to promote the responsible and conscious use of the internet, social networks and applications with respect to privacy.

The stories are accompanied by didactic sheets, to help and guide families when reflecting with children on what is the safest way to live in a digital world. They are available on the APDCAT website and on the network of Libraries of the Generalitat, and have also been made available to the Department of Education to disseminate them through the educational telematics network of Catalonia (XTEC).

The APDCAT recalls that personal information can be used to commit cyberattacks, through techniques such as phishing or identity densification, which can have serious consequences for the person. Beyond this criminal activity, personal information is also used for other purposes, such as commercial, since it can be used to create profiles to personalize the sale of products and services. This can cause the so-called "filter bubble", in which the person sees limited the offer of products and services that comes according to their interests, ignoring the rest. This information can alsobe used to manipulate people from their profiles and induce them to certain behaviors.