‘Privacy, Please!’: Local mom and CMU privacy expert Lorrie Cranor can help you talk to kids about boundaries, safety and more

As the director of CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University’s privacy and security research institute, Lorrie Cranor is a fan of Data Privacy Day. She was glad to attend a Data Privacy Day event at the Carnegie Library in Oakland, and at one point she offered to help out by reading from a book about privacy.

“I asked the librarians if we could read a story in the children’s room, and they said, ‘Sure.’ But they didn’t know of any privacy books that would be appropriate to read. And after some research, I realized there wasn’t a lot written for this age group,” Cranor says. “So I decided to try to write something.”

Cranor’s new book, “Privacy, Please!,” introduces kids in the 4  to 6 age range to the concept of privacy.

The story gives parents an engaging entry point for talking with younger kids about things like personal boundaries, independence and digital safety. As an expert on the science of privacy and a mom, Cranor has created a book that encourages kids to recognize and ask for privacy in ways that feel safe, healthy, and age-appropriate.

“A lot of my research is on digital privacy. 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,” Cranor explains. “They’re going to be getting there, and we can’t ignore it. But we need to start with some more basic things.”

Cranor had done a project where she asked people of all ages to draw pictures of privacy. As research for her book, she went through her collection of about 500 pictures that people had drawn and looked at all the images drawn by children.

“I went back to the youngest kids and looked at the pictures they drew to try to understand where they were at, what were they thinking about with privacy,” she says.

Some had drawn themselves going to their bedrooms to have their own private space. Others made it clear: The biggest threat to their privacy is their siblings. Some drew a child under blankets or in a clubhouse, feeling safe sharing a private space with a friend. And many kids drew bathrooms, because they associate potties with privacy. 

All of this gave Cranor “an understanding of what 4-year-olds are thinking about privacy and now could I put together a story that gives them some vocabulary to actually talk about privacy, and to ask for privacy, and to help navigate other people’s privacy.”

Knowing that 4-year-olds wouldn’t be reading this book on their own, Cranor made sure the book would be useful for teachers to read in a preschool or kindergarten setting or for parents and grandparents to read at home. 

For further support, the website for “Privacy, Please!”  has a discussion guide with page-by-page suggestions for what to discuss with children about the book and ways to frame a discussion. There are also activities, including Cranor’s favorite: the door tag activity.

Just like the “Do Not Disturb” or “Privacy, Please” door tags that you find at hotels, Cranor’s template lets kids print a tag for their door that says “Privacy, Please” on one side and “Let’s Play” on the other. That way family members and friends know when the child would like a bit of space to themselves. 

And kids can get creative: “I also have a blank template, so that kids could draw their own pictures,” Cranor says. “Some of my friends have already tested it with their kids, and they said their kids had a lot of fun making them and then putting them on their doors, and then trying to keep their siblings out of their rooms.” 

At the “Privacy, Please!” website, you’ll find links to buy the book directly or via Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other booksellers. 

“Privacy, Please!” cover image courtesy of Lorrie Cranor.