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Stop Reading Your Kids' Text Messages

Privacy has been on my mind the last couple of days. The other day, I talked to a woman who told me she reads her kids' text messages. She eyeballs every line of text they receive.

My colleague, Mitch Wagner, writes about a court case in which a company argues it has the right to read a former employee's personal e-mail. So there's a lot of chatter around this topic.

The woman's kids know she's looking at their SMS missives. She says she's only doing it to make sure they're safe from creeps. And yet, I find it an appalling breach of trust between child and parent.

Full disclosure: I don't have kids. It shouldn't matter, but many who read this will wonder. What I do have is a keen interest in matters of privacy. So let's pick this apart:

The woman told me that her sons are in middle school, and that they're good kids, who don't get into trouble. Don't they have a reasonable expectation of privacy?, I asked. "Not when I pay the phone bills," came the reply.

I'm no lawyer, but this situation stinks, and these kids need an advocate. I'd gladly represent them in Fake Privacy Court. Here's how what I'd tell the fake judge:

1. Even though this woman pays the bills, her kids are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Just as they expect to use the telephone in the house without anyone listening in on their calls, or listening to recordings of the calls after the fact.

2. The kids may have given their consent, but their well-intentioned but misguided parent gave them no other recourse. For practical reasons (social and family logistics), opting out of using text messaging is not a viable option.

3. There is precedent. A California court has ruled that employees' text messages are private, even when transmitted on devices their companies pay for, a U.S. appeals court ruled in June. The employee/employer relationship in that case parallels the parent/child relationships here. How? Both employer and the parent have similar motives: They want to restrict and control the activities of their charges.

I don't know what the fake judge would say. But I'd hope it would go something like this:

"Parents ought to tread lightly around electronic privacy issues. Just because they can snoop, doesn't mean they should. Kids need their parents to provide guidance and structure; not surveillance."

Am I nuts? Or is it wrong to read your kids' text messages?

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