A new book by the director of CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University’s privacy and security research institute, introduces children between the ages of 4 and 6 to the concept of privacy.

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CyLab director Lorrie Cranor’s “Privacy, Please!” features a story that gives caregivers an entry point for talking with children about such things as personal boundaries, independence, and digital safety.

Cranor, who is an expert on the science of privacy and a mother, said that her book encourages children to recognize and ask for privacy in ways that feel safe, healthy, and age-appropriate.

“A lot of my research is on digital privacy,” Cranor told Kidsburgh in a recent article on her book. “And as I started thinking about, well, ‘What should I teach 4-year-olds about privacy?’ I realized that digital privacy is probably not the right thing to start with. They’re going to be getting there, and we can’t ignore it. But we need to start with some more basic things.”

Inspiration for the Book

Cranor told Kidsburgh that she had taken part in a past Data Privacy Day event at the Carnegie Library in Oakland, during which she offered to read to children from a book about privacy. However, the librarians didn’t know of any books on the topic and her research made her realize that it was a subject about which much hadn’t been written. Therefore, she decided to write “Privacy, Please!”

As research for the book, she went through a collection of about 500 pictures that people of all ages had drawn regarding privacy that had been part of a project on which she’d worked.

She focused on the pictures drawn by children, many of which showed them going to their bedrooms to have their own private space. Others made it clear that the biggest threat to their privacy was their siblings, while some associated bathrooms with privacy.

Cranor told Kidsburgh that she knew that 4-year-olds wouldn’t read the book on their own, so she made sure the book would be useful for teachers to read in a preschool or kindergarten setting – or for caregivers to read at home.

The website for the book includes a discussion guide with page-by-page suggestions for what to discuss with children about the book and the ways to frame a discussion. It also includes activities – such as a door-tag activity that enables children to print a tag for their door that says “Privacy, Please” on one side and “Let’s Play” on the other. This would alert family members and friends when the child would like a bit of space.

For more information on Cranor’s book, read Kidsburgh’s article.