Familiar COPPA to Protect Children
March 9 2006
In the USA, the Federal Trade Commission this week announced its decision to retain unchanged the Rule which implements the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Among other areas, the Rule affects the collection of data from children.
COPPA governs the behaviour of online service operators whose services are directed at children under 13 years old, as well as operators who have 'actual knowledge' that they are collecting personal information from children under 13.
As part of the review, the FTC asked for comments on the costs and benefits of the rule, and on whether it should be modified. The body also asked for information on three specific issues as requested by Congress. These were:
- The rule's effect on practices related to the collection and disclosure of information related to children;
- The rule's effect on children's ability to access information of their choice online; and
- The rule's effect on the availability of web sites directed to children.
The comments received by the FTC stated that COPPA has succeeded in providing greater protection to children's personal information online, that there is a continuing need for the rule, and that it should be retained. More specifically, many of the comments emphasized that the rule provides web site operators with a clear set of standards to follow and that operators have received few, if any, complaints from parents about the standards and how they are implemented.
It was generally agreed that the Rule's provisions are clear and have been effective. In particular, most comments stated that the terms 'web site or online service directed to children' and 'actual knowledge' are sufficiently clear. They also did not find that screening for visitors' age on general audience web sites has become a problem, and they supported the FTC's continued approval of using a credit card with a transaction as a method of obtaining verifiable parental consent to the collection of children's personal information.
Most comments also supported the continued use of the Rule's sliding scale approach to verifiable parental consent. The FTC adopted a sliding scale approach for parental consent when it issued the COPPA Rule in 1999. Under this approach, the measures required to obtain verifiable parental consent depend on how the operator of a web site intends to use the information that it collects. Specifically, if the operator intends to disclose information collected from children to the public or a third party, then it must use more reliable methods for obtaining verifiable parental consent. In contrast, if the operator intends to use information from children for its internal use only, then it also can obtain verifiable parental consent by an e-mail from the parent if it also confirms the consent by sending a message to the parent by delayed e-mail, fax, or telephone.
Based on the comments received and its own experience in implementing the rule, the FTC has determined that the risk to children's privacy from an operator collecting personal information for internal use only remains relatively low. The Commission has also determined that more secure technologies that might be used to obtain parental consent for information collection and internal operator use are not yet widely available at a reasonable cost. It has further decided that the sliding scale approach has worked well, and that its continued use may foster the development of children's online content. Based on this evaluation, the FTC has decided to indefinitely retain the sliding scale approach while it continues to monitor technological developments.
The FTC is online at
www.ftc.gov
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
