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The Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act of 1998. (COPPA)
The adoption of COPPA was in direct response to the lack of industry compliance
with the law as articulated by the FTC in the KidsCom/CME letter. In June 1998,
the FTC presented its Privacy Online Report to Congress, documenting the online
collection of personal information from children. The FTC rearticulated its
prior concerns, that collection of personal information from a child under the
age of 13 without informed parental consent would be a deceptive trade practice.
The FTC reported to Congress that even in chat rooms, children innocently and
without request may reveal where they live or go to school or their real e-mail
addresses. The FTC informed Congress that parents need to understand the risks
and consent to any such collection and disclosure of personal information.
Congress apparently agreed, and wasted no time in acting on the FTC's report.
Within months COPPA was law.
COPPA requires that commercial websites obtain verifiable parental consent
before collecting personal information from a child under the age of 13 (age 12
and under). A failure to obtain such consent is an unfair and deceptive trade
practice. COPPA took effect on April 21, 2000.
COPPA applies to commercial websites, online services "targeted at children" and
any online service operators with actual knowledge that they collect personal
information from a child. (Actual knowledge can be as simple as a child sharing
their grade or age in a monitored general audience chatroom on your client’s
site, or can be supplied by an email or phone call from concerned parents who
object to the collection practices on behalf of their child.) Personal
information includes such items as full name, home address, e-mail address,
telephone number, social security number or any other information that the FTC
determines "permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual."
The FTC promulgated the regulations implementing COPPA on October 20, 1999. The
regulations require covered operators to:
(1) Provide notice on the website of what information is collected from
children, how information is used and the website operator's disclosure
practices for such information (notice this applies to all information, not just
"personal information");
(2) Obtain verifiable parental consent (which requires
more than a mere e-mail consent from the parent) to collect, use or disclose
children's personal information before it is collected from the child, with
certain exceptions and special rules for newsletters and internally used
information;
(3) Upon request, provide parents with a description of the types of
information collected from their child, or the actual information obtained from
their child, and the opportunity to refuse to permit the further use,
maintenance or future collection of the child's personal information. Thus,
in addition to having to obtain initial consent from the parents, if a parent
withdraws consent at any time, the operator must remove that child's personal
information from the system;
(4) Cease conditioning the child's participation in games, contests or any
other activity upon the disclosure of more information than is reasonably
necessary to participate, including permitting parents to allow the site to
collect personal information but refusing to let the site share the information
with third parties; and
(5) Maintain reasonable procedures "to protect the confidentiality, security,
and integrity of personal information collected from children."
       
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Parry
Aftab, Esq., 
Marvel and
all character names and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of
Marvel Characters, Inc., and are used with permission. TM & © 2004 Marvel
Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. “Super Heroes” is a Co-owned registered
Trademark.