Laws said needed to protect children from Internet threats

Bernard Richard plans to lobby the Graham government to draft legislation to better protect children from companies that mine their browsing habits for data or from sexual predators bent on exploiting them online.

Richard, the province's child and youth advocate and privacy commissioner, chaired a national working group that studied the growing threat that specific dangers on the Internet pose to children and teens.

The group is releasing a discussion paper today entitled "There Ought to be a Law: Protecting Children's Online Privacy in the 21st Century."

It's targeted at lawmakers, many of whom are less web-savvy than their children or grandchildren, in the hope they catch up with the best legal reforms that treat children's online privacy as a human right.