The FTC just released a policy statement regarding enforcement activities related to COPPA, which can be found at this link.
According to Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, age verification technologies are important child-protective technologies, and this policy statement “…incentivizes operators to use these innovative tools, empowering parents to protect their children online.”
The policy statement provides certain conditions that the FTC will consider to determine if it will not bring an enforcement action under COPPA. Specifically, the FTC stated:
The policy statement states that the Commission will not bring an enforcement action under the COPPA Rule against operators of general audience sites and services and mixed audience sites and services that collect, use, or disclose personal information for the sole purpose of determining a user’s age without first obtaining verifiable parental consent—if they comply with certain conditions, specifically that they:
- do not use or disclose information collected for age verification purposes for any purpose except to determine a user’s age;
- do not retain this information longer than necessary to fulfill the age verification purposes, and delete such information promptly thereafter;
- disclose information collected for age verification purposes only to those third parties the operator has taken reasonable steps to determine are capable of maintaining the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the information, including by obtaining certain written assurances from those third parties;
- provide clear notice to parents and children of the information collected for age verification purposes;
- employ reasonable security safeguards for information collected for age verification purposes; and
- take reasonable steps to determine that any product, service, method, or third party utilized for age verification purposes is likely to provide reasonably accurate results as to the user’s age.
Age verification remains an important issue regarding online child safety, and we have seen a number of states begin to require age verification in a variety of forms, in addition to a number of other child-focused laws.