FTC wants to further restrict collection of data from children with new rules

The US Federal Trade Commission has proposed a number of changes to the Coppa children’s privacy law. The regulator wants, among other things, that tech companies must disable targeted advertisements for children under the age of thirteen by default and that they must not encourage them to use an app or service more often.

According to the proposed changes tech companies will no longer be allowed to disclose personal information of children under the age of thirteen to third parties unless they obtain ‘separate, verifiable parental consent’. An exception applies to services where that disclosure is an ‘integral part’. If permission is not given, companies may not hinder access to the services.

Furthermore, the FTC wants tech companies to have to justify themselves if they want to persistently collect identifiers from children without parental consent. These could only be used to ‘support internal business operations’, but the companies must prove that the identification data will not be used to address ‘a specific individual’, for example with targeted advertisements. Under the new rules, it is also no longer permitted to encourage children to start or use an app with push notifications.

Finally, the Coppa rules regarding data retention are being tightened. The information may no longer be kept indefinitely under any circumstances, but only for as long as ‘necessary for the specific purposes for which it was collected’. According to FTC head Lina Khan, the proposed changes should ensure that tech companies “no longer outsource their responsibilities to parents.”

American citizens now have 60 days to respond to the proposed changes. The last time the Coppa legislation was amended was in 2013, when persistent identifiers such as cookies were added to the definition of ‘personal information’ and rules were introduced regarding the collection of children’s location, photos, videos and audio recordings.