Risk Assessment - Essay Example

Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Body Table 1.0 III. Conclusion IV. References Introduction: It is without question that the risks facing children on the World Wide Web are expansive. The risks associated with chat rooms and strangers on the internet have been the cause for many law enforcement investigations and new protocols and restrictions towards what minors can and cannot do on the internet. Likewise, even secondary schools have been instituting policies which ban educators from “friending” their own students on social networking sites due to the perceived risk and liability that this entails.

However, although the risks to children online and more specifically in social networking are vast, growing, and varied, few studies have attempted to present what risks are the most prescient and to what extent. This type of analysis is beneficial in determining proper policies and procedures in order to mitigate these risks. As such, this brief analysis will make a cursory review of the risks associated with social networking as it applies to children and then construct a risk assessment of these threats in order to more succinctly describe the threats that children face in the social networking sphere. . Accordingly, the levels of restrictions that users can chose to set regarding what information is shared/distributed with others is at the prerogative of the user.

However, children are unlikely to entertain the full scope of how privacy can affect their lives. Additionally, the decision of what to share, what not to share, to what extent to share, and who to share it with is also likely not a cognitive ability that children will fully grasp the significance of (White, 2012). Without question, privacy is an issue that affects all users; however, with respect to children, the danger is specifically high. For purposes of this analysis, privacy concerns (as they relate to children on social networking) have been labeled a high overall risk.

This is due to the fact that privacy violation and over sharing are so expansive as well as the fact the severity associated with that risk exceeds the category of privacy itself. With respect to privacy, the threat to children online can begin and end with this category. If it is taken seriously, the succeeding categories are redundant; however, if not heeded at all, this privacy category is a gateway to each of the others. Regardless of the particular privacy mechanism in question, the increasing rate of identity theft, issues relating to what to share and how to share it, and the fact that privacy encompasses all of the dangers that are extant to children online makes it the most prescient issue associated with the problem.

When one stops to think about it, the proper amount of online privacy will stop sexual predators from finding their victims, will hamper cyber bullying, and will serve to protect the child in most other situations. As such, privacy is the paramount concern with relation to social networking. Likewise, a