New, stronger rules protecting children's privacy online went into effect July 1. While the goal is to protect kids from aggressive behavioral advertising, implementation is going to be a rocky process if parents don't pay attention.
The new rules to strengthen the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was approved by the Federal Trade Commission late last year and they finally went into effect yesterday. When COPPA was originally passed by Congress in 1998, social networking, mobile devices and apps, and online tracking were practically non-existent. The new rules reflect the changing landscape and the fact that more and more companies are collecting information online to personalize site experience and to share with advertisers.
What is COPPA?
COPPA has three fundamental components. A Website must obtain the parent's verified consent in order to collect personal information for children under the age of 13. The sites must clearly describe in a privacy policy what data is collected and how it is used. Finally, sites are responsible for storing children's' personal information securely.
These conditions apply to all sites which consider children as their primary target audience. General site owners who know that minors are using their services also have to obey the law, and third-party advertiser networks have to make sure they are receiving validly obtained data.
All this sounds like common sense when it comes to kids. Kids like to talk about themselves and don't realize the implications of sharing too much information online. Let's be honest, there are plenty of adults who still don't get the dangers of over-sharing onlinehow can we expect kids to know better?
What Is Personal Information?
The new rules expand the core concepts to include social networks, user-generated-content, and mobile apps. It also expanded the definition of personal information from just names, addresses and phone numbers to include screen names, geolocation data precise enough to identify the city street, and any image, video, and audio files containing the child's image or voice. Anything that can identify what the child is using, such as cookies, IP addresses, and the unique device identifier (UDID) for mobile devices will now require parental consent before they can be collected.
It's not so obvious, though. SecurityWatch recently identified several Android games that clearly appeal to kids but were collecting quite a lot of personal information.
Sites Are Taking Action
Yahoo sent emails to parents or guardians of users under 12 years of age to ask for consent for children to continue using Yahoo sites. When children try to log in to their Yahoo account, if their parents had not yet responded, then they are redirected to a page telling them to remind their parents to take action. Parents have until August 31 to reply.
If they don't provide consent, Yahoo will flag the account as inactive and delete the account. All data associated with the account, including contacts and emails, will be deleted and be irretrievable. This is one email parents should not ignore if they want their kids to keep their Yahoo email address.
I wonder how many angry comments we will see September 1 from parents who weren't paying attention.
Facebook? Since the stated policy is that users have to at least be 13 years old to join the site, the social networking giant will remain largely unaffected by COPPA rules. But that highlights a problem with COPPA
Sites Will Look the Other Way
many sites will just put in an age verification screen and say they have done their part. And it's incredibly easy for kids to just lie about their date of birth. Consumer Reports estimated in a 2011 report that 7.5 million children in the U.S. under the age of 13 were already on Facebook.
According to the FTC, sites with "actual knowledge" they have underage users are subject to COPPA rules. That means they have to explicitly ask for the age or date of birth. If the app or site doesn't ask for that information, or just blocks the user from using the site (Facebook displays a "Sorry, we are not able to process your registration" message if you are underage), then they are complying with the letter of the law.
For these kids, their data is being collected and shared with no protections in place. But we can't really ask sites to implement biometrics or rely on some kind of a national database to verify age, can we?
Parental Education Needed
COPPA itself has good goals, but it can't do much if the parents are not aware of the tools and rules. They need to understand why it's important they pay attention to what Websites and apps their kids are using.
Many parents don't understand the scope of data collection or how the information is being used. They need to learn about behavioral tracking and how data is shared across networks. They may be less willing to let their kids sign up for services online that aren't specifically designed to protect kids' privacy.
The Center for Digital Democracy has put together a parents' guide explaining COPPA. The FTC has one, too. Parents, read them.
How the site decides to collect parental consent will play a big role in how parents will react to the new rules. If parental consent means watching a video and verbally agreeing to data collection, or having to download a form, sign it, scan it, and upload it again, that would just annoy the parents and encourage them to just take an even more hands-off approach.
Would COPPA Stifle Cool Features?
There are some concerns that some sites and app developers would just ignore the rules.
Instead of putting in proper protections, would developers just put out lamer apps for kids? Would they just hide behind the "I didn't know kids were using my apps" claim? Would child-friendly sites move to a paid model so that kids can't just sign up without parental consent?
The rules "set a default so high on privacy and so low on functionality that it is crippling the space for children. It locks the child online space into something that is not very usable," Daniel Castro at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation recently told AP.
The kids lose out if the adults don't step up and do their jobs.
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