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Indiana Law Journal

Document Type

Note

Publication Date

Summer 2020

Publication Citation

95 Indiana Law Journal 1005 (2020)

Abstract

Part I of this Note serves as an evaluation of parental use of social media and

further seeks to draw attention to the social and developmental impact parental

oversharing can have on children. Part II examines the tension between parents’

constitutional rights to direct the upbringing of their children, as well as their First

Amendment interest in online expression, and their children’s interest in personal

data security and privacy. Part III provides an overview of the European Union’s

right to be forgotten framework in the sharenting context and considers the

plausibility of implementing such a framework in the United States. Given the

competing constitutional interests at stake, I argue that a balanced-rights approach

should be taken to empower minors to control what personal information can be

permanently disclosed about them, while also preventing infringement on the rights

of parents to express their views on parenting and direct the upbringing of their

children. The right to be forgotten framework—adopted from the European Court

of Justice’s landmark ruling in Google Spain v. Costeja and codified in the General

Data Protection Regulation as the right to erasure—would be an effective means of

balancing these competing interests, as parents would still have the ability to disclose

information about their children and family life on social media sites, while children

would have the option to request that search engines remove links to specific pages

when the child’s name is searched.

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