Teaching kids to give away their personal information

Denise Howell at ZDNet has posted a description of the invasive information gathering conducted by the people at Build-A-Bear Workshop.

You see, each Build-A-Bear critter is issued a “birth certificate,” which is generated after the kids—and hopefully their parents, though that didn’t seem to be making a bit of difference on the common sense front—visit a bank of computers. These are big orangey-purple affairs, sort of Dr. Seussian in presentation. The keyboard buttons include stars and other colored shapes to make data input all the easier and more intuitive for youngsters. In fact, the computer-plus-keyboard experience is very close (no doubt intentionally so) to something children and their parents might have experienced in a kids’ museum, library, or school. Before their new friend can get its birth certificate, the kids are prompted to enter a host of very personal personal information: birth date, home address, gender, phone, and email among them. Along the way is the option to “skip” some of this input, but unlike what we’re used to in the world of online retail forms, there’s no effort to communicate what data is “required” for the transaction to proceed, and what’s “optional.” The overall effect is to sideline the privacy-savviness that might otherwise accompany the parent and/or child. I sat there and watched parent after parent prompt their kids to flex their memory muscles and practice their computer skills: “Ok Timmy, now, what’s our address? What’s your birthday? Do you remember our phone number? Good typing!!”

via Boing Boing