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A Presidential endorsement - and big developments - in the kids' privacy debate.

In a potential “game-changer” for children’s data privacy legislation, President Biden weighed in on the issue during his State of the Union Address on March 1, saying in part, “It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, [and] demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children.” The President’s remarks about social media were part of a broader proposal to address “our national mental health crisis.” Read our SOTU analysis, and the response from Senators Markey (D-MA) and Cassidy (R-LA).

The news didn’t stop there. Roblox became the first tech company to endorse California state legislation that proposes design-centric child privacy safeguards and Meta launched new parental control features for both VR and Instagram.

Two other reads worth your time on this topic: “Is crackdown on social media for kids too late?” (EdSource) and “The danger of making the internet safe for kids” (Recode).

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No easy answers for age verification

How do you verify someone’s age online, without creating privacy risks? It’s not as easy as it sounds, the Wall Street Journal reports, in part because “most methods of verifying age create new problems of their own… enterprising children will be able to find ways to defeat all but the most intrusive verification processes.” But recent activity in Europe, including the successful pilot of an interoperable age-verification process using a browser cookie offers a preview of potential paths forward.

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COPPA Crackdown
Two recent examples highlight the importance of complying with COPPA and the high stakes for both kids and companies when issues arise. The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), an industry self-regulation group, reported that TickTalk, a smartwatch designed for young kids, failed to obtain valid parental consent before collecting data from its users, prompting a CARU investigation and TickTalk’s development of a detailed remediation plan. 

At the state level, the U.S. District Court for the North District of Illinois approved a $1.1 million class-action settlement with TikTok. The complaint alleges that the app tracked, collected, and disclosed children’s data without parental consent. 

At the federal level, the FTC and DOJ announced a settlement with WW International (formerly Weight Watchers) and its pediatric subsidiary alleging that its kid-focused app, Kurbo by WW, improperly collected data from kids as young as 8 years old. This settlement is noteworthy as it marks the first time in a COPPA enforcement action that the Commission required a company to delete all “affected work product” - including algorithms - related to the data collection. What does that mean in practice? FPF’s John Verdi spoke to NPR’s The Indicator to explain. Read FPF’s analysis of the settlement, and learn about the process that companies must go through under COPPA in order to obtain Verifiable Parental Consent (VPC).

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More student data collection = more student data vulnerabilities.
The volume of student data collected by schools increased at all levels during the pandemic, and while some of that data collection is helpful to schools that are seeking to improve student outcomes post-pandemic, it is increasingly clear there can be substantial downside, too. Two recent examples of note, from both K-12 and higher ed:

Between the rapid implementation of student surveillance software that flags terms including “gay,” “lesbian,” and “transgender” and controversial state legislation like Florida’s recently-passed “Don’t Say Gay” bill and a wave of similar bills across the country, many fear that LGBTQ student privacy and safety is increasingly at risk in K-12 schools. “There is no justifiable reason for any of these measures […] for many LGBTQ kids, schools can be an important lifeline for information — and a source of comfort that they are not alone,” The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote. More from FPF on the implications of school surveillance here and here.

George Washington University apologized for a pilot project that collected location data from students, faculty and staff without their consent last fall, acknowledging the effort “raises important privacy considerations and potential breaches of expected ethical norms in higher education.” The GW student newspaper went further in a scathing editorial, calling it a “shocking breach” and “outrageous violation of student privacy.” Experts point out that programs like GW’s  will reduce trust on campus.