In early brainstorm sessions and client meetings of our garden project there were some ethical and moral decisions that became present. When dealing with a target audience such as ours ranging from kindergarten to grade 12, there are some constraints that may call for changes or pivots in the design. As an example, we are making an AR game for children that is location sensitive, this is what we were told when getting our briefing from the client. Obviously this is not the way he told us because this is a massive red flag but this is what we got out of our first client meeting. What they actually meant is that there are AR codes at specific areas within the school that need to be scanned in order to prompt an activity in the game. Contrary to our first impression, our client wasn’t wanting us to track the users location via GPS, it was simply a miscommunication. This made us aware of the implications involved with working with such a target audience when going forward with the project.
Being an educational game, the teachers need to be able to see the students progress in the app so they can use it as reference for grading. So now we are talking about tracking children’s information through a personal device. What information would this be tracking? The times at which they are using the app? Where they are using it (at school or at home)? Users under the age of 13 are protected by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (1998). This enforces many restrictions when it comes to storing children’s information and results in limiting their access to online forums without parental consent and the need for privacy policies. Because of this many websites simply disallow users under the age of 13 to view or make profiles in their domain to avoid the costs and risks associated. This is a U.S. law, but the Online safety (2015) publication mentions that children under the age of 13 in Australia are protected by this act and as such cannot use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
This area of the game, later named the Teachers Lounge was simplified to avoid any risks involved with the act. We also found out that the clients main team would be handling the student accounts and the information tracked. Given that this was an important part of working in the industry we still fleshed out the design of the Teachers Lounge to ensure that the teachers would be getting sufficient information to grade their students and get the most out of app. In the end the app will store the students name, the number of plants & weeds present in their virtual garden, their course completion and the time of their last logon. We came to the conclusion that this information was not intrusive of a child’s privacy and still allowed the teacher to get enough information to grade their students.
Bibliography
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. (1998). Federal Trade Commission. Retrieved 24 August 2017, from https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule
Online safety. (2015). Child Family Community Australia. Retrieved 24 August 2017, from https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/online-safety
Caleb Middlebrook 