On February 25, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released an important children’s privacy enforcement discretion statement: COPPA – Enforcement Policy Statement Promoting the Adoption of Age-Verification Technology. Age verification of minors is an increasingly hot topic in children’s privacy law, as several states recently adopted laws requiring companies to conduct age verification before allowing access to certain apps and online services. With the proliferation of these laws, the regulated community has raised questions about how to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule) when implementing age-verification mechanisms, and this was one of the topics discussed during a recent full-day workshop at the FTC. The FTC’s policy statement makes clear that the Commission will not bring enforcement actions 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 without verifiable parental consent for the sole purpose of determining a user’s age. Notably, the policy statement does not alter the Commission’s longstanding position that sites primarily directed to children under 13 should not collect age information; rather, they should assume audiences are under 13 and align data collection practices with COPPA.
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