bosses in asking for support. the education secretary commits to tackling persistant pupil absences head on, describing it as a key priority. women travelling home alone could soon be offered protection from a free mobile phone app. now on bbc news, emily brown investigates the effect social media companies are having on children's lives, in disclosure: who's looking after the kids? one in three internet users is a child. pizza! children's attention is worth billions. it's an industry fuelled by personal data. ad tech and big tech sometimes know more about a young person than their parents do. where young users don't always understand what they're sharing. they've got messages stored here from when i was... must have been 13, 1a. should more be done to control this massive market? are they kind of influencing children's life's choices? absolutely.

tonight, who's watching the kids? i've had a digital life since i was about 13. facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok. i love social media. now, these days, i almost feel like my digital life is indistinguishable from my real one. i mean, if i didn't instagrammed it, did it even really happen? i know that advertising is a part of this, and recently, i noticed the return of some old anxieties, alongside a high number of diet—related ads. it made me askjust how much do social media really companies know about me? and what impact is this having on children growing up today? i've come to holyrood secondary, scotland's biggest high school, to ask these 14 and is—year—olds, are they on their social media

accounts as much as me? i could spend, like, five hours on tiktok and maybe on it weekends, like, ten, 11 hours. a good few hours a day on instagram. because you just get so, like, distracted by it that everything else, like, doesn't exist for a moment. i show them my instagram feed. did anything jump out at you? i think about 60% of what was there is, was either an ad _ or like a promotion for something. is it really sort of obvious to you? yeah. is itjust normal to you, or does it annoy you? what are the feelings there? just feels normal. yeah. yeah, it's just normal. you just sort of get used to it. so do you all have your phones on you? all: yeah. i want to do an experiment to see if they realise how social media companies are using their personal data to target content at them. do all of you have the tiktok app? all: yeah. when you look on tiktok and you think about the type of content you tend to see there, do you have any guesses

on when you open your app, what might be pop up? for me, it's probably anime is going to pop up. anime? normally the first thing to come up is an advert on mine's. _ advert? yeah, always an advert. oh, yeah, adverts. 0k. so what do the students find when they all check their phones, at the same time, in the same place? it's boxing, someone boxing. painting. anything else? it's a sponsored funko pop. that someone�*s promoting. all these tiktok users are the same age, go to the same school, live in the same city, but they're getting very different, targeted content. and how does that make you feel, that they're making a lot of money, essentially, from your information? your private information. i've never actually i bothered about that. no, i've never really thought into it. their reactions don't really surprise me. but what's actually going on when they open their phones? what they see in their own feed is determined by lines of code, called algorithms.

the algorithms literally learn from what we like and what we scroll through, what we watch and how long we watch it. tiktok wasn't a thing when i was 13, but today, it's one of the most popular apps amongst teenagers. i want to know what today's teens see when they when theyjoin up. i'm going to call myself 13, which is the youngest age you can officiallyjoin, though many social media users are much younger than that. i've got a fresh device, so the algorithm can't pick up any data trail. and i am going to start scrolling. within minutes, the algorithm has picked up that i'm in scotland, and then glasgow. as a 13—year—old, i'm presented with this pop up, saying that my account is private. it doesn't change what i see, but it limits who can see any videos i post. and then another pop—up.

this one nudges a 13—year—old user to help keep tiktok make money, by keeping personalised ads switched on. last year, tik tok�*s parent company made £25 billion. this lawyer says the whole point of keeping people online longer is it allows platforms like tiktok to harvest increasing amounts of data. the more you use tiktok, the more it learns about you. the more you interact with the programme, the more data it is able to collect. so the algorithms are able to more specifically target you, based upon what it is you're watching, what you like, what you didn't like. the wall streetjournal investigated this. they created automated accounts, posing as teenagers. when they searched for explicit content, they were fed more and more of it. tiktok said this experiment in no way represented the behaviour or viewing habits of a real person.

there are several pending legal cases being brought here, and in the us, about the collection of children's data. david scott is leading one against tiktok. whenever you interact with the app, what happens is, it gets your email address, it gets your telephone number, it gets your profile picture. it keeps track of every video you have ever, or photo you have ever uploaded. any video or photo you've ever watched. any video or photo you've liked. it goes onto your computer, it determines you ip address, it looks at the cookies that you have, it determines the device you are using. so in many ways, it's very, very insidious, because, as soon as you interact with the app, it's grabbing all of this information. tiktok said...

they said they had created... of their privacy policy for younger users. the content we access on social media is only free because of advertising. our personal data is worth a fortune. last year, alphabet, the parent company of google and youtube, generated over £100 billion in revenue from online adverts, and it's practically facebook�*s whole business model. none of the companies we approached that sell this online advertising wanted to speak to us. i'm going to meet a researcher who has been investigating this digital economy, and is concerned on behalf of his own kids. the core business model

of the googles, of the facebooks, for all that they do and for all the innovation that they bring, ultimately, they are ad companies. so they are hugely invested in keeping this model alive. is there a reason why they would actually be specifically interested in a child's perspective of the world, or children's data? by the time the average child is 13, the ad tech industry has collected 72 million data points about that child. and then this data is just used to kind of build profiles of our children, with their interests, so that advertisers can basically pay for their attention. children browsing social media platforms can see over 400 adverts an hour. so they are absolutely being, you know, bombarded with an effort to kind of either get them to consume more, to get them to kind of change their opinion. and this is, you know, a you know, a huge volume of adverts, much more than we would again permit on any other media. you know, i don't think i really

care about what information i put out online and i don't think my friends do either, but am getting curious to find out what data is actually being held on me. facebook�*s the first social media platform ijoined. i know that you can download the data held on you there and i'm giving ita try. ijoined at 13, this could take some time. so, everything is downloaded, ijust need to open it now. i am a little bit nervous, i am not going to lie. um... there are dozens of folders, including one called "0ff—facebook activity", listing the date and time i visited over 500 websites, but that's not what's scaring me here. it says messages. no way!

they have got messages stored here from when i was... must have been 13, 1a. oh, my god. they have everything, absolutely everything i have ever sent, pictures, videos. they have... ..a picture of me that i sent to a friend at 16 in my underwear. i'm actually shaking a bit right now, i can't actually believe that they are storing that. when i sent this picture, i had no idea that this would still be in existence. we asked facebook about this. they said...

they no longer allow advertisers to target under—18s using data from external apps and websites, or from their interests. some of the best people to carry marketing messages to children are children. they are called "kidfluencers." they produce content than can reach billions. like this video from 10—year—old ryan from texas. this has been watched more than 2 billion times. youtuber tiana from nottingham was treated like a pop star when she met fans of her toy review channel at a shopping centre, aged just 10. kidfluencers make money in a couple of ways. first, the traditional way. companies pay them to promote their products.

when kidfluencers have built a large following, there's a second, more lucrative way to make money from ads. when they upload video, they decide how many advertising spots they want to sell around it. companies bid against each otherfor the space, based on users' personal data. imagine a billboard where everyone sees a different personalised ad. this website shows much they can earn. if i take the most popular video from teenage youtuber tiana and put it into the calculator... ..these are her estimated earnings. not yet in tiana's league is 16—year old nicholas, a tiktok creatorfrom edinburgh. emily laughs. that's just what's going through your mind all the time? yeah. how did you get started with it?

i started off by doing dances, i'd seen all the famous tiktokers doing it, and that's what i had set my mind on, i really want to become famous, i really want to become like them. nicholas now has more than 760,000 followers. in brand marketing terms, that makes him a "macro influencer". and with a following like that, i guess you might have been approached by advertisers? yeah, yeah, i have been. i've been... i haven't actually done that many brand deals, but yeah, i've done a few, so, yeah. sometimes it's been for virtual things such as apps and games, and then other times it's been for physical objects. for example, there's this company which are sending me these lamps that i have got to promote. and they basicallyjust told me to make a video with the lamps and then tag them in the caption, so they reallyjust gave me like freedom to do whatever i want, just shows the lamps. so, when it comes to online advertising, there are a set of rules. do you, do you know what they are, do you make sure to follow them? how does that work? i'm not that certain about what they are, and normally when i do do advertising, i make it quite clear

that the company sent it to me by tagging them, and like saying that it's an ad in the caption. but for some videos where i'm promoting games, for example, i never say that that's an advert, i never say it's been paid for, because ijust see it as one of my normal videos, so i don't really see it as an advertisement, even though i'm getting paid for it, if that makes sense? he has 69 million likes and counting, and although he tries, can we blame him if he doesn't know exactly what rules he should be following? it's a complex area. there are at least three different regulatory agencies in the uk that govern this sort of content. but the content goes global, so there's all the other countries' rules to consider. i can totally understand how a teenage creator would struggle to get clarity. let's go on it now and it looks super cool! i

i started this investigation after i noticed that every time i opened my phone, i was being fed a stream of diet—related contents, and to be honest, it made me feel as insecure as i had as a teen. but i wonder what it must be like for children growing up in this environment. dr elly hanson is a clinical psychologist specialising in young people. critical thinking skills are something that develops over time. so it's understandable that a child aged seven is going to struggle with differentiating between what's an advert and what's something different. but it's also true to say that this is something that can still be difficult for teenagers and for adults, as well. it can often be really difficult to work out what's what. i want to test this out. i'm meeting primary school children from a village outside inverness. i want to show them a couple of pieces of content, to see how much they understand. the first one's a traditional tv advert. what will the seven—year—olds make of this? it was all about, like, honey and bees, and, like, they were talking about new foods and stuff.

i don't know if that food looked yummy, it kind of made me hungrier. as predicted, the younger ones have trouble identifying this an advert. the older ones were more adept. rory is 12. the cereal advert, i think was more age, aimed at the young, at younger people. because then they would, they would ask the parents to buy the cereal. what about something from the youtube channel of a fast food company? this is an ad, and labelled as such. it went out last christmas. we understand what this is, but will they? do you want to tell me a little bit about, what did you just watch? like, the other person was mostly on screens, not paying attention to the bits of nature and other stuff about christmas, and he, and then at the end, he actually thought about it.

it was just about him not liking to do anything. 0k. there's this bag on there, and then at the end, it said, it had the big m, the logo for mcdonald's. it's clear the older children recognised the brand, while the younger ones struggled to understand what they are watching. many social media companies say their platforms are designed for people over 13. yet this doesn't stop millions of younger kids. 0fcom found 55% of five—15—years—olds use social media, so it's no surprise that several of these primary—aged children have also been on these platforms. i use snapchat sometimes, and instagram. i sometimes watch youtube, netflix and...yeah. i, when i'm watching telly, - i normally watch youtube or netflix,

or sometimes disney plus. all the children recognise top british kidfluencer, tiana, who makes a living from her youtube channel. she makes clear when she is promoting lego to her 17 million subscribers. did most of you, even if you don't necessarily watch her, did most of you know who she was? all: yeah. over the last decade, children's use of digital media has increased rapidly. nearly 6 in 10 children are on youtube for an average of 2.5 hours every day. dr hanson is concerned about the impact this might have on children in the future. there's a feeling of being sucked in, of dependency, of needing. needing my smartphone, needing all that's on there. yeah. and finding it very difficult to put that down and put it away. and so, for me, one of the biggest problems here is what that does to young people's autonomy. in that respect, then, in a way,

is big tech and ad tech, are they kind of influencing children's life's choices? absolutely. what we know from research is that, if people come to hold more materialistic values, actually, that is linked to them feeling less happy in their lives, lower levels of wellbeing and also, actually, a reduction in how much they value other things like kindness, generosity. according to 0fcom, more than half of parents in scotland worry about companies collecting information on what their children do online, and almost as many worry about online pressure to spend money. did anything in particular strike you? i do think the online advertising can be quite subtle. also i think there's an element of them being influenced by what they watch, even if they're not aware that they're being advertised to. yeah, i suppose i've tried

to explain to the girls that not everything is as it seems on the internet, and you know, what i've...what i've seen today, what i've learnt today, i think i maybe need to pay that even more attention. and were you aware that by the time a child turns 13 years old, 72 million data points have been collected on them? no, and that's shocking. i just don't think that children, they should be in that category, i don't think they should be allowed. you know, if i sign up for something, i agree to the terms and conditions, and that's fair enough, even if i don't read them thoroughly, i'm... i'm signing up to them. whereas children aren't doing that, they're not able to make those kinds of decisions. to be perfectly honest, i don't tend to read, let alone understand, the terms and conditions. but recently, some new rules have come in that are meant to restrict the collection of children's data. these rules are called the age—appropriate design code, and have been brought in by the uk's data regulator, the information commissioners office.

we assess that the sort of areas where there's the biggest risk, particularly for children, is in social media and messaging, in online video and music, and in online games. because these are the areas where children are spending a lot of time and effort. a lot of their data is being collected through these, and potentially, in some cases, it's being misused. the code stops companies sharing data without a compelling reason, and makes them take account of the "best interests of the child". so if firms know they're dealing with an under—18, they now aren't allowed to share things automatically, like location or browsing history, unless these conditions are met. one of the sort of single most important principle within the children's code is to act in the best interest of the child. we see when it's working well, children are in control, have autonomy and have choice. when it isn't working well, when they may be exposed to harm, is when those platforms have taken away that and are manipulating children to have behaviours that are great for the platform,

but may not be best for the child. social media platforms say they are changing the way they operate. facebook, instagram and youtube have now restricted the number of targeted ads to under—18s. tiktok still allows these, if the user has agreed. we asked the big platforms if this new rule meant they've stopped collecting data on under—18s, too. tiktok and youtube are still collecting data on this age group, though youtube says it will reduce the amount it's collecting. we didn't get a clear answerfrom facebook, which owns instagram. what's clear is the new code doesn't stop companies collecting personal data on under—18s. ad tech and big tech sometimes know more about a young person than their parents do. and that can be in ways that might get them in trouble with their parents.

heather burns is a digital rights activist. she says uk data protection laws didn't need strengthening, theyjust need better enforcement. there are laws and legal frameworks in place. the question is, are they accessible to people? are companies obeying them, working within the law? we need companies to be more conscientious of the fact that children are using their products and services. and they need to find a way to help protect those children, without actually violating their privacy and their right to freedom of expression even more. but the biggest difference i think we could make is in terms of advertising and ad tech, and the networks of advertisers that are collecting and utilising and monetising data about us and everything we do, in every waking minute. i want to put this to the regulator who oversees the children's code. do you think that the younger generation might be disappointed to learn about how much of their data has been collected and used ?

i mean, i think this is the question around our impact. of course the single most powerful change for organisations is their reputation. and there are organisations who have always done the right thing and they have built a level of trust with children and parents that will last a lifetime. those that don't, they're going to end up, as people become aware of what they've been doing, those people will turn against those organisations, they won't use their services as they become adults, they won't purchase them for their companies. i have a feeling, in some ways, that ad tech is sometimes too powerful for regulators. are they more in charge of you than you are of them? so, i mean, ithink enforcement is not the only tool in our tool kit for drive—change. there are platforms who don't adapt as the code comes into place, or others. 0nce we've tried education, once we've helped them through it, if they still aren't doing the right thing, we're not hesitant to take robust action to make sure they are protected. and we have the powers to hold even the largest organisations to account. since i started making this programme, the big tech companies

have made some positive changes to protect the privacy of children and young people on social media. but they don't deny they're still collecting personal data on them. i didn't really understand what i was signing up to when ijoined facebook at 13, but today, the law gives me the right to delete my data. so i'm finally getting rid of that very personal teenage picture. i don't know if the children and teenagers that i spoke to will also wonder what data's being held on them one day. but what i can say is i've learned to care a lot more, and i will be treading through social media more carefully in the future.

good evening. the slightly muggy and humid air we've seen over the past few days is now on its way out. we've got some fresh air heading southwards behind this weather front, which should clear away from the south—east corner as we go through sunday afternoon. it does mean tonight will be colderfor some, compared to what you have been used to. here is that weather front, a zone of cloud that has passed northern england, the midlands, towards wales in the south—west. patchy light rain or drizzle on that for a time, clearing away towards the south—east as we go into the morning. temperatures underneath it, as you can see by the orange colours, in double figures, but either side of it will be down

into single figures. it is here where we can see some mist and fog patches around for sunday morning. 0verall, sunday is not looking a bad day, very pleasant for most, many places will be dry. there will be cloud in the south. here is the big picture, we've got high pressure building in and there is that by the front pushing across the south—east corner as we start tomorrow morning. the weather front will be lying somewhere between the wash and cornwall as we start the day. still some light rain or drizzle on it, either side where we got some mist and fog patches, they will clear quite readily, and we'll see some good, long sunny spells. sunshine eventually reaching the far south—east as we go into the end of sunday afternoon. there will be some showers pushing through the northern half of scotland throughout the day, quite a keen breeze here, maybe touching a0 miles an hour in 0rkney and shetland. later in the east, even though it does feel that bit fresher, it will still feel quite pleasant out there in the sunshine, temperatures may be squeezing a load 20. cool feel across the northern half scotland. the breeze still blowing into monday, but many showers will clear, a bit more cloud into the western isles as we go through into monday morning but by and large, it will be a cooler night

for all as we start the new week, temperatures in rural areas down into lower single figures. but the week ahead, we continue with a largely dry theme, it will feel cooler than the dayjust gone but it won't be a cold week by any means. monday we have cloud and patchy rain and drizzle, working into the north of england. turning cloudy after a bright start, further south, some mist and fog patches clearing, when will be lighter and still fairly pleasant. through the rest of the week, not much in the way of rain around until we get to the weekend, potentially the scotland and northern ireland and temperatures sitting somewhere in the mid teens. goodbye for now.

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