The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has overhauled regulations aimed at protecting the privacy of children when they are online. This began when the FTC initiated a review in 2010 to ensure that the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (the “COPPA Rule”) keeps up with evolving technology and changes in the way children use and access the Internet, including the increased use of mobile devices and social networking. The updates to the COPPA Rule reflect careful consideration of a public roundtable and several rounds of public comments sought by the agency. The COPPA Rule was mandated when Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in 1998. It requires that operators of websites or online services that are either directed to children under 13 or have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information from children under 13 give notice to partners and get their verifiable consent before collecting, using, or disclosing such personal information, and keep secure the information they collect from children. It also prohibits them from conditioning children’s participation in activities on the collection of more personal information than is reasonably necessary for them to participate. The Rule contains a “safe harbor” provision that allows industry groups or others to seek FTC approval of self-regulatory guidelines. So, what has changed?

The final amendments:

• modify the list of “personal information” that cannot be collected without parental notice and consent, clarifying that this category includes geolocation information, photographs, and videos;

• offer companies a streamlined, voluntary, and transparent approval process for new ways of getting parental consent, such as electronic scans of signed parental consent forms, video-conferencing, use of government-issued identification, and alternative payment systems;

• close a loophole that allowed kid-directed apps and websites to permit third parties to collect personal information from children through plug-ins without parental notice and consent;

• extend coverage in some of those cases so that the third parties doing the additional collection also have to comply with COPPA;

• extend the COPPA Rule to cover persistent identifiers that can recognize users over time and across different websites or online services, such as IP addresses and mobile device IDs;

• strengthen data security protections by requiring that covered website operators and online service providers take reasonable steps to release children’s personal information only to companies that are capable of keeping it secure and confidential;

• require that covered website operators adopt reasonable procedures for data retention and deletion; and

• strengthen the FTC’s oversight of self-regulatory safe harbor programs.

Source: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2012/12/coppa.shtm

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