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center for digital democracy
'Much-Needed': FTC Bolsters Privacy Rules to Protect Kids Online
"Anyone who believes that children deserve to explore and play online without being tracked and manipulated should support this update."
Dec 20, 2023
To ensure that tech giants will not have "carte blanche with kids' data," as one advocacy group said, the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday unveiled major proposed changes to the United States' 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; and
- Prohibited from using any retained personal user information for any secondary purpose or from retaining the information indefinitely.
Education technology firms would also be permitted to collect and use students' personal information only for school-authorized educational purposes and not for commercial use, and COPPA Safe Harbor programs—industry groups which are permitted to seek FTC approval for self-regulatory guidelines that are the same as or stronger than COPPA's—would be required to publicly disclose their membership lists and report additional information to the FTC.
Haley Hinkle, policy counsel for children's digital advocacy group Fairplay, said the proposed rulemaking builds on the FTC's recent enforcement actions against companies including Epic Games—which charged users, including children, for unwanted purchases—and Meta, which misled parents about controls on its Messenger Kids app and about who could access kids' data.
"With this critical rule update, the FTC has further delineated what companies must do to minimize data collection and retention and ensure they are not profiting off of children's information at the expense of their privacy and well-being," Hinkle said. "Anyone who believes that children deserve to explore and play online without being tracked and manipulated should support this update."
Katharina Kopp, director of policy for the Center for Digital Democracy, said that strengthened online safeguards are "urgently needed" as markets and web companies increasingly pursue children "for their data, attention, and profits."
The rule will "help stem the tidal wave of personal information gathered on kids," Kopp said.
"The commission's plan will limit data uses involving children and help prevent companies from exploiting their information," she added. "These rules will also protect young people from being targeted through the increasing use of AI, which now further fuels data collection efforts. Young people 12 and under deserve a digital environment that is designed to be safer for them and that fosters their health and well-being. With this proposal, we should soon see less online manipulation, purposeful addictive design, and fewer discriminatory marketing practices."
Khan said the updated rules will make clear that safeguarding children's data online is the responsibility of tech firms.
"The proposed changes to COPPA are much-needed, especially in an era where online tools are essential for navigating daily life—and where firms are deploying increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil children," she said. "Our proposal places affirmative obligations on service providers and prohibits them from outsourcing their responsibilities to parents."
Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of the Design It for Us coalition, said the proposed rules, which are subject to a 60-day public comment period before the FTC votes on them, "will make kids and teens much safer online."
"We applaud the FTC's new proposed rules that strengthen COPPA by centering the experience of children online, rather than Big Tech's bottom line," said Qureshi. "The proposed rule directly targets Big Tech's toxic business model by requiring the invasive practice of surveillance advertising to be off by default, limiting harmful nudges that keep young people coming back to the platform even when they don't want to, and including protections against the collection of biometric information."
"The FTC is acting where Congress has failed to, imposing strict rules for Big Tech who have spent years profiting off our personal information and data," Qureshi added. "This proposal should signal to Congress to act quickly in 2024 to advance bipartisan kids' privacy and safety legislation."
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Child Advocates Rebuke 'Beyond Appalling' Facebook Push to Allow Kids in the Metaverse
"Should Meta throw open the doors of these worlds to minors rather than pause to protect them, you would, yet again, demonstrate your company to be untrustworthy when it comes to safeguarding young people's best interests," a coalition told CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Apr 14, 2023
On the heels of a study showing that minors who use Facebook's virtual reality platform known as the "Metaverse" have routinely been exposed to harassment and abuse, a coalition of more than 70 children's health experts and advocacy groups on Friday called on its parent company Meta to scrap plans to officially open up the digital world to children as young as 13.
A letter signed by groups including Fairplay and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) warns that insufficient research has been done on the effects of spending time on platforms like Facebook's "Horizon Worlds"—but notes the research that has been done shows clear risks.
The platform is currently open to users aged 18 and up, but CCDH published a study in March after showing that out of 100 recorded visits to Horizon Worlds, minors were present in 66 of them. Facebook plans to permit 13-17 year olds to use the platform,
Since introducing the Metaverse last year, the company's stock price has dropped more than 70%, and Facebook has conducted two rounds of mass layoffs in the past six months, with more expected.
Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of expanding the platform to children in order to boost the company.
"It's beyond appalling that Mark Zuckerberg wants to save his failing Horizons World platform by targeting teens," said Golin. "Already, children are being exposed to homophobia, racism, sexism, and other reprehensible content on Horizon Worlds."
CCDH's study identified 19 recordings in which minors were harassed by adult users, including "sexually explicit harassment, racist abuse, and misogyny."
A minor using a Black avatar was told, "You're Black, you're sentenced to death, get out of here" in a virtual courtroom in Horizon Worlds, and "minors were on the receiving end of sexually explicit insults" in at least four of the documented instances.
\u201c\u201cThey have prioritized profit over safety in their design of the product, failed to provide meaningful transparency, and refused to take responsibility for ensuring worlds are safe, especially for children.\u201d - Our CEO @Imi_Ahmed\u201d— Center for Countering Digital Hate (@Center for Countering Digital Hate) 1681475760
"Meta must wait for more peer-reviewed research on the potential risks of the Metaverse to be certain that children and teens would be safe," wrote the signatories, including former U.S. House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, now at the Council for Responsible Social Media, and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
In addition to being exposed to harassment and explicit content, the advocates warned in the letter, children's access to Horizons World "magnifie[s] risks to privacy through the collection of biomarkers."
"Before it considers opening its Horizon Worlds metaverse operation to teens, it should first commit to fully exploring the potential consequences," Center for Digital Democracy deputy director Katharina Kopp said of Facebook. "That includes engaging in an independent and research-based effort addressing the impact of virtual experiences on young people's mental and physical well-being, privacy, safety, and potential exposure to hate and other harmful content. It should also ensure that minors don't face forms of discrimination in the virtual world, which tends to perpetuate and exacerbate 'real life' inequities."
The company is planning to welcome minors into Horizons World a year-and-a-half after former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen testified that the company's products "harm children."
In addition to raising other concerns about the social media platform, Haugen pointed to studies showing that 13.5% of teen girls in the United Kingdom felt that Instagram—which Meta owns—contributed to suicidal thoughts, and that 17% of teen girls said their eating disorders got worse after they began using Instagram.
"Should Meta throw open the doors of these worlds to minors rather than pause to protect them, you would, yet again, demonstrate your company to be untrustworthy when it comes to safeguarding young people's best interests," the coalition told Zuckerberg in their letter Friday.
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'Incredibly Creepy' Billboards to Track Behavior of Passers-By
'People have no idea that they’re being tracked and targeted'
Feb 29, 2016
Billboards nationwide will soon begin spying on passers-by's behavior and selling that data to advertisers.
Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, which owns tens of thousands of billboards nationwide, is announcing plans to use people's cell phones to allow its billboards to track the behavior of everyone who walks or drives past the ads.
"People have no idea that they're being tracked and targeted," Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, told the New York Times, which broke the news on Sunday. "It is incredibly creepy, and it's the most recent intrusion into our privacy."
The marketing behemoth is partnering with AT&T and other companies that track human behavior to collect data on viewers' activity, which advertisers could then use to create hyper-targeted ads--similar to how websites track visitors through their browsers and sell that data to online marketers.
Privacy advocates say the problem is that most people when out in public, have no idea that their every move is being recorded, analyzed, and sold for marketing purposes. When similar ads that used smartphones to track behavior were installed in phone booths in New York City in 2008, there was a loud public outcry, and the billboards were quickly removed after a Buzzfeedinvestigation.
Indeed, even Clear Channel Outdoor Americas' spokesman conceded to the New York Times that the company's new service "sounds a bit creepy."
Critics also note that using smartphone data to track the behavior of unsuspecting passers-by poses specific risks to children. Children are more susceptible to advertisements and use mobile phones at increasingly younger ages. A 2012 study found that 56 percent of children ages eight to 12 have cell phones.
Advertisers also increasingly use facial recognition technology to track behavior in public spaces, and many people remain unaware of it. The February 2016 issue of Consumer Reports drew attention to the growing phenomenon and listed a few examples of how the technology is being put to use:
In Germany, the Astra beer brand recently created an automated billboard that noted when women walked past. The billboard approximated the women's age, then played one of several prerecorded ads to match.
Retailers can use facial recognition systems to see how long people of a particular race or gender remain in the shop and adjust displays and the store layout to enhance sales.
Using related technology, some high-end retailers in the U.S. have experimented with "memory mirrors" that perform tricks such as storing images of what shoppers tried on so that they can be revisited or emailed directly to friends for feedback.
Public tracking techniques such as facial recognition are "largely unregulated," the magazine observed.
"People would be outraged if they knew how facial recognition" is being developed and promoted, Alvaro Bedoya, the executive director of Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology, told Consumer Reports. "Not only because they weren't told about it, but because there's nothing they can do about it."
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