Data Privacy
,
Data Security
,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
How UX Decisions Are Becoming Regulatory Liabilities for CISOs
There’s a quiet shift in how we think about security. Children’s data isn’t just a privacy problem anymore. It’s not even just a trust and safety issue. It’s becoming a fiduciary problem. And dark patterns aren’t simply dodgy UX – regulators are increasingly treating them as evidence that enterprises have breached a duty of loyalty and care to the youngest users.
See Also: On-Demand | NYDFS MFA Compliance: Real-World Solutions for Financial Institutions
For CISOs and data governance leaders, this fundamentally changes the threat model. The risk isn’t only “someone might break in and steal the data.” It now includes “we designed the system in a way that makes it almost inevitable that a regulator will decide we’ve misused that data.”
That’s a very different kind of incident.
From Defense to Manipulation Defense
Most security programs are built around external adversaries. They model threats, prioritize controls and tune detections. Dark patterns don’t fit that narrative. There’s no attacker required. The harm and the liability are generated inside the building.
Regulators are now explicitly connecting three things that used to sit in silos:
- Design of interfaces and defaults like UX and product;
- How one collects, profiles and monetizes data related to marketing and growth;
- Risk governance and protection of people in terms of security, legal safety and compliance.
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act treats any organization handling personal data as a “data fiduciary,” with heightened duties for children’s data. The General Data Protection Regulation, the United Kingdom’s age-appropriate design code – or the Children’s Code, the EU’s Digital Services Act, proposed Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act updates and U.S. state laws all explicitly target manipulative design. Australia’s Online Safety Act, the in-development Children’s Online Privacy Code and proposed unfair trading reforms are building a framework that treats dark patterns as both a safety hazard and a consumer harm.
Australia’s Position: Safety Law Meets Fiduciary Thinking
The Online Safety Act 2021 gives the eSafety commissioner powers to require platforms to act on harmful content and enforce age-appropriate protections. Safety-by-design expectations are normalized.
Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 requires the OAIC to develop a Children’s Online Privacy Code, which must be in place by December 2026. It will embed “the best interests of the child” as a primary consideration when handling children’s data. The OAIC expects services to design with children’s interests first, not as an afterthought.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Consumer Policy Research Centre have documented dark patterns in the Australian market through their “Duped by Design” report from June 2022. The federal government released proposals in November 2024 for an unfair trading practices prohibition that would capture manipulative design directly.
Australia isn’t simply copying international trends. It’s creating a hybrid model that combines privacy, safety and consumer harm principles. The net effect is the same: Manipulative UX is becoming a regulatory liability.
Fiduciary Duty in Plain Security Language
A fiduciary must act in the other person’s best interests. When applied to children’s data, organizations must not:
- Exploit developmental vulnerabilities;
- Use nudges to distort consent;
- Retain or monetize data in ways that exceed reasonable expectations;
- Elevate revenue above the welfare of child users.
India makes this explicit with “data fiduciary” language. Europe operationalizes it through design codes and dark pattern restrictions. Australia is aligning privacy, safety and consumer law in the same direction, even if the terminology isn’t identical.
For security leaders, this changes their role. They are not only a steward of systems anymore. They are increasingly being treated as a steward of people’s vulnerability inside those systems.
When Dark Patterns Become a Control Failure
Common product decisions now create security and compliance exposure:
1. Default Settings for Minors
Default tracking or personalized advertising for citizens under 18 years old is becoming indefensible in most jurisdictions. EU and U.K. guidance expects high-privacy defaults. India prohibits processing of children’s data that causes detrimental effects on their well-being and bans tracking, behavioral monitoring and targeted advertising directed at children. Treat privacy-hostile defaults as a control misconfiguration.
2.Consent Flows and Nudgy UI
Oversized “accept all” buttons, confusing toggle cascades, buried reject options and time-pressure cues are now treated as invalidating consent. For security, this is a decision-integrity failure. A child can’t meaningfully refuse if the interface is engineered to produce a “yes.”
3. Retention and Secondary Use
GDPR, India’s DPDP Act and Australian reforms all push for strict purpose limitation and shorter retention windows for children’s data. If one’s data lakes ignore those limits, they are not just running analytics, they are accumulating liability.
4. Monetization Strategies
Loot boxes, time-pressure offers, behavioral prompts and algorithmic maximization of screen time all intersect with children’s cognitive immaturity. Regulators increasingly view these as harmful by design. A fiduciary can’t justify features that rely on exploiting the user they’re meant to protect.
What This Means for the CISO’s Scope
The old organizational divide is now dangerous. Here is the emerging reality:
- Security must be embedded in design review;
- Threat modeling must include internal incentives;
- UX integrity must be treated as a security control;
- Security must have authority to block high-risk features.
Australia’s reforms make this explicit. If a design isn’t in a child’s best interests, the future Children’s Online Privacy Code will likely require that it be changed. Security will need to show that the organization considered this.
The Uncomfortable Trade-off
A fiduciary posture will hurt some business metrics: reduced profiling, lower ad revenue or shorter session times. But regulators worldwide are converging. A fiduciary can’t defend profit maximization when it compromises the person they’re meant to protect. Children’s data is entering that ethical and legal frame.
Where to Start?
- Map where children may use the systems;
- Assess each flow against best-interests and anti-manipulation tests;
- Integrate these into Data Protection Impact Assessments and risk registers;
- Treat manipulative design as an incident category;
- Train product, growth and design teams on fiduciary expectations.
Children don’t choose architectures. They can’t understand data flows. They can’t see how incentive structures shape the interfaces they use. That asymmetry is why fiduciary thinking is spreading across privacy, consumer law and online safety. India has codified it. Europe is enforcing it. Australia is aligning fast.
For CISOs, the question is no longer “How do we keep attackers out?” It’s: “How do we protect children, even from the systems we built ourselves?”