All articles tagged with #childrens privacy
Disney will pay $10 million to settle allegations of violating children's privacy laws by failing to properly label YouTube videos as made for children, leading to targeted advertising and data collection without parental consent. The settlement follows an FTC inquiry and requires Disney to improve compliance with children's data protection laws, specifically under COPPA.
Meta used publicly posted photos of schoolgirls in their teens to promote its platform Threads, targeting adult users, which has sparked outrage among parents and privacy advocates due to concerns over exploitation and inappropriate targeting. Meta claims the images did not violate policies and were used as part of recommendation tools, but critics argue this practice is highly inappropriate and risky for children's safety.
Disney agreed to pay $10 million to settle a children's privacy lawsuit with the FTC over misclassified YouTube videos during the pandemic, highlighting ongoing challenges in online age verification and compliance with children's privacy laws.
New York is close to passing a law that would restrict social media platforms from using algorithms to promote content to minors, requiring parental consent for algorithmically generated feeds. The legislation also aims to protect children's privacy by limiting data collection and sharing for users under 18. The proposed laws would allow parents to set stricter limits on their children's social media use and notifications. This move has faced significant tech industry lobbying and legal challenges in other states.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking public comments on proposed rules to update the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and shift the responsibility of protecting children's data from parents to service providers. The proposed rules include turning off targeted advertising by default, limiting push notifications, restricting surveillance in schools, strengthening data security measures, and prohibiting companies from retaining children's data indefinitely. The FTC also aims to expand COPPA's definition of "personal information" to include biometric identifiers. The proposed changes are intended to address the evolving ways personal information is collected and used to monetize children's data. The public has 60 days to submit comments once the notice of proposed rulemaking is published.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has unveiled a comprehensive proposal to enhance children's privacy online, aiming to limit data collection from kids and expand protections for their personal information. The plan includes requirements for digital platforms to disable targeted ads for children under 13 by default and prohibits the use of certain data to send push notifications encouraging continued product usage. The proposal seeks to update the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and has gained bipartisan support. If adopted, the rules could lead to increased scrutiny and potential legal battles with tech companies.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed significant changes to strengthen the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in order to enhance children's privacy online. The proposed changes would require online services to turn off targeted advertising by default for children under 13, prohibit the use of personal details to induce children to stay on platforms longer, strengthen security requirements for data collection, limit the length of time online services can retain children's information, and restrict the collection of student data by educational-tech providers. The FTC's proposal aims to shift the responsibility of online safety from parents to digital services and curb the monetization of children's personal data.
A newly unsealed court document from an ongoing federal lawsuit alleges that Meta, the parent company of Instagram, knowingly collected personal information from children under the age of 13 without parental consent. Attorneys general from 33 states accuse Meta of receiving over a million reports of under-13 users on Instagram but only disabling a fraction of those accounts. The lawsuit also claims that Meta's algorithm steered children towards harmful content, impacting their mental well-being. The complaint calls for court orders prohibiting Meta from these practices, with potential civil penalties amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Meta denies the allegations and states that verifying the age of online users is a complex challenge.
Face search engine PimEyes has implemented technical measures to block searches of minors in response to concerns about children's privacy. The subscription-based service, which uses facial recognition technology, has a database of nearly three billion faces and allows users to search for their own face online. However, there were no measures in place to ensure users were searching only for themselves. PimEyes had previously banned accounts for inappropriate searches of children's faces and will now only allow searches by human rights organizations. While the block is not foolproof, PimEyes is using age detection AI to identify photos of minors, although accuracy issues remain with teenagers. Another face search engine, FaceCheck.Id, does not appear to have any technical restrictions on searches of children's faces.
Microsoft will pay a $20 million fine to settle FTC charges that it illegally collected and retained personal information from children without their parents' consent. The company violated COPPA by gathering data from children who signed up for the Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining their permission. The FTC's order requires Microsoft to take steps to strengthen privacy protections for child users of the Xbox system and extends to third-party game publishers Microsoft shares children's data with.
Amazon has been charged with violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA) by keeping children's voice recordings forever and ignoring parents' requests to delete them. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged the retail giant for breaking its promises when it kept sensitive voice and geolocation data for years and used the information "it unlawfully retained" to help improve the Alexa algorithm. Amazon has agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty, change its business practices, and institute strong privacy safeguards.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused Facebook-parent Meta of violating its $5 billion privacy settlement and has proposed toughening up restrictions on the company. The FTC has called for Meta to be banned from monetizing data it collects from younger users and from releasing any new features or products until a third-party auditor determines the company’s privacy policies do enough to protect users. The FTC also alleged that Meta had misled the public about its compliance with the historic settlement that resolved allegations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica data fiasco, as well as prior agreements with the agency.
TikTok has been fined £12.7m ($15.9m) by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for breaching data protection laws, including using the personal data of children under 13 without parental consent. The ICO estimated that TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million UK children under 13 to use its platform in 2020, even though it sets 13 as the minimum age to create an account. The breaches occurred between May 2018 and July 2020, with the Chinese-owned video app not having done enough to check who was using the platform and remove the underage children who were.
TikTok has been fined $15.9 million by the UK's data protection authority for violating data protection rules intended to safeguard children online. The platform allowed up to 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use the service in 2020 without obtaining parental consent, and failed to identify or remove underage users from the platform. TikTok has faced similar privacy concerns in the US and has been cited by regulators over children's privacy concerns in the past.
TikTok has been fined £12.7 million by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office for failing to protect children's data, including allowing 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use the app in 2020. The Chinese-owned app was found to have breached data protection law and failed to use children's personal data lawfully. The fine comes amid heightened scrutiny of the app's security and privacy, with calls for it to be banned in the US over national security concerns. TikTok's CEO has denied claims that the app shares user data with Beijing.