Abstract
The advantage of digital era with unlimited access to the Internet is enjoyed by most people globally including the young and children. However, policy-makers concern with the advancement of Internet and propagate the idea of shielding and segregating the children from the harm that may cause from access to the Internet, including breach of online privacy of the children. Children are not sensitive with their online privacy or do not know how to protect their online privacy. Hence, some countries have enacted specific legislation to protect the privacy of the children such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the United States of America or introduced self-regulatory initiatives on online child privacy like in the European Union. At the international level, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was introduced in 1989 by the United Nation to protect the children. In Malaysia, the government introduces the Child Act 2001 and the Sexual Offences against Children Act 2017 to protect the children. However, how far these two Acts protect the online privacy of the children in Malaysia? Thus, the article seeks to examine the legal protection of children online informational privacy in Malaysia. The article adopts doctrinal research methodology which is mainly library research approach. The article finds that the current regimes of laws do not adequately protect the online privacy of the children in Malaysia. It is suggested that amendment or enactment of the laws to that effect be made.
Highlights
The advantage of the digital era in a borderless world and unlimited access to the Internet is enjoyed by most people globally, if not all, including the young or children
The primary data from this study came from statutes which are the focus of this article, i.e. the Federal Constitution, the Penal Code, Child Act 2001, Sexual Offences against Children Act 2017, Personal Data Protection Act 2010 and Communications and Multimedia Act 1998
The question is, as argued prior to this, are parents able to monitor and “act” on behalf of their children, to protect their children online, when their children are more computer-savvy than themselves? As such, we look further into the online privacy of children in Malaysia
Summary
The advantage of the digital era in a borderless world and unlimited access to the Internet is enjoyed by most people globally, if not all, including the young or children. How far do these two acts protect the online informational privacy of children in Malaysia?. What drives the authors to investigate the issue of protection of online informational privacy of children in Malaysia is that research in this area is lacking. Apart from the work of Wahab, Dahalan and Shahwahid (2017) which looked at the right to participate against the right to privacy among the young, to date there is hardly any research on the legal protection of online informational privacy of children in Malaysia. This study seeks to examine the statutory protection of online informational privacy of children in Malaysia
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