A growing movement of celebrity parents is advocating for enhanced children’s privacy, influencing media practices and legislative landscapes as 2025 marks a pivotal year for new protections. This advocacy extends beyond paparazzi encounters to the complex digital realm, where children’s data and online presence face unprecedented risks. Their concerted efforts highlight 2025 as a crucial period for children’s privacy.
In This Article:
Battling the Lens: A Shift in Paparazzi Culture
Celebrity parents are increasingly drawing a firm line against media intrusion. Bollywood figures like Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor have explicitly asked paparazzi not to photograph their children, emphasizing the child’s right to a private upbringing. Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli even relocated to London in 2024 for a calmer environment. In Hollywood, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard launched a “No Kids Policy” social media campaign in 2014, gaining support from actors like Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Aniston.
Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner testified in California in 2013 for legislation protecting children from aggressive paparazzi. The 2015 UK “Weller ruling” clarified that celebrity children have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” even in public, making unauthorized photo publication costly unless pixelated. This sustained advocacy is shifting industry practices towards greater respect for children’s privacy.
Digital Safeguards: Landmark Laws Take Effect
The focus on children’s privacy has expanded significantly into the digital realm, with 2025 marking a critical period for new federal and state legislative actions.
Federal Action: COPPA Amendments and COPPA 2.0
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finalized amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule), effective June 23, 2025. These strengthen protections for personal information collected from children under 13, expanding “personal information” to include biometric identifiers, requiring separate parental consent for third-party disclosure, mandating written security programs, and prohibiting indefinite data retention.
Further federal efforts include the reintroduction of the bipartisan Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) on March 4, 2025. This proposed law seeks to raise the protected age to under 17, prohibit targeted advertising to children and teens, and establish an “Eraser Button” for users to delete collected personal information.
State-Level Momentum
Concurrently, many states are enacting or proposing laws to regulate children’s social media accounts and online data. As of January 2025, 19 states have passed laws requiring age verification for access to potentially harmful content. Common provisions across states like Nebraska, New York, Florida, and Utah include mandatory age verification (often prohibiting accounts for those under 14 or 16 or requiring parental consent for minors under 18) and parental supervision tools.
Emerging concerns around Artificial Intelligence (AI) are also being addressed; California introduced the LEAD Act (AB 1064) in February 2025, requiring parental consent for using a child’s personal information to train an AI model and mandating risk assessments for AI systems based on potential harm to children. While states are pushing boundaries, some laws face legal challenges based on the First Amendment.
The “Sharenting” Dilemma: Protecting Kids in the Online Spotlight
Beyond legislative mandates, celebrity parents are also grappling with “sharenting”—parents sharing their children’s lives online, often for commercial gain. Children cannot consent to their images and life events being shared, raising concerns about privacy violations and future psychological impacts. A significant portion (46.4%) of posts featuring children by influencers include sponsorships. Risks include misuse of images (digital kidnapping), untracked monitoring for commercial use, and the “eternal nature of the social media footprint” leading to future bullying.
Many celebrity parents, like Alia Bhatt and Anushka Sharma, explicitly state their intention not to expose their children on social media, emphasizing the child’s right to decide their public personality when older. This contrasts with the “kidfluencer” phenomenon, where children lose privacy and the capacity to create their own reputation. France has a law giving children featured in influencer posts the “right to be forgotten.” In the US, California expanded its Coogan Law in 2024 to include child influencers, mandating a percentage of earnings be set aside in a trust account to prevent financial exploitation.
Navigating Complexities: Rights and Responsibilities
The push for children’s privacy navigates complex legal and ethical terrain, balancing fundamental rights like freedom of speech and parental autonomy against the child’s right to privacy and protection. Laws restricting online content or data collection for minors often face First Amendment challenges, with courts grappling with whether such laws constitute content-based restrictions triggering “strict scrutiny.” The Fourteenth Amendment protects parental rights to direct their child’s upbringing, meaning children generally lack privacy rights against their parents in law.
However, the “sharenting” and “kidfluencer” phenomena challenge this, leading to proposals for new legal frameworks like a “reputational and privacy tort” allowing former kidfluencers to seek redress against parents. The “public figure” status of former child influencers also complicates defamation suits, with legal discussions proposing allowing adult children to petition courts to rescind this status. The legal system is re-evaluating established rights to adapt to digital challenges and children’s unique vulnerabilities online.
Privacy: A fundamental right, not a privilege
The collective efforts of celebrity parents, combined with significant legislative advancements at both federal and state levels, are shaping a more protected digital and public environment for children. As 2025 unfolds, the ongoing dialogue and legal evolution underscore a societal commitment to ensuring children’s privacy is recognized not as a privilege but as a fundamental right in an increasingly visible world.
By – Sonali