Children's Health Defense By
By Julia Conley
To ensure that tech giants will not have “carte blanche with kids’ data,” as one advocacy group said, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday unveiled major proposed changes to the U.S. online privacy law for children for the first time in a decade, saying that companies’ evolving practices and capabilities require stronger protection for young people.
“Kids must be able to play and learn online without being endlessly tracked by companies looking to hoard and monetize their personal data,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan as she announced proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998.
For more than two decades the law has restricted companies’ online tracking of children through social media apps, video games and advertising networks by requiring firms to obtain parental consent before gathering or using young users’ personal information.
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have sought to comply with COPPA by prohibiting children under age 13 from having accounts and requiring users to provide their birth dates, but regulators have accused several tech companies of failing to adequately protect children, and firms including Amazon, Google and Epic Games have been hit with multimillion-dollar penalties for COPPA violations.
Under the proposed changes, companies would be:
- Required to obtain verifiable parental consent to disclose user information to third parties including advertisers, “unless the disclosure is integral to the nature of the website or online service.”
- Prohibited from using personal information to send “push” notifications urging kids to use their services or platforms more.
- Required to establish and implement a written children’s personal information security program.
- Required to establish and make public a written retention policy for children’s data.
- Prohibited from using any retained personal user information for any secondary purpose or from retaining the information indefinitely…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (childrenshealthdefense.org)
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