The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

If you are a parent and you have kids under the age of 13, are they on their phone all the time and are they playing Angry Birds? You may be aware of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It became effective in 2000 and it soon may be updated to move us into the mobile/cell phone age. (California has an additional law – OPPA.)

What does COPPA do now? It “applies to the online collection of personal information from children under 13” by commercial websites or online services. This means “full name, home address, email address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child.” The issue here is ostensibly privacy but it is a euphemism for a lot of other stuff, like phishing, the fear of “predators” and sexting and access to porn.

The FTC is taking public comments on broadened definitions that will include geolocation data transmitted by mobile apps that pinpoint where a child is, and it clarifies that apps, such as online games and ads, are now covered by the restrictions.

This is not a simple matter. Parents who closely monitor what their kids do may strongly support COPPA and feel these additional changes are necessary. Other parents with a looser leash may feel this is hysteria. Their under-13s are already on Facebook and know their way around the web just fine. Porn? Ho hum. Sexting? They’ve done it already. Shopping? What parent is foolish enough to let their kids know their credit card or have access to online banking, social security and other private information?

In their announcement, the FTC said “There has got to be a balance between teaching our kids and not having them preyed upon." They mean businesses here, not just “sexual predators.” But have they come down on the side of too much control? The real problem here is that it will be a nightmare for businesses to navigate, and that is where business is going - online. Children’s advocates may demand increasingly strict legislation, but that won’t work either. Kids will simply go around the restrictions. Education is always a better solution than censorship and over-regulation.