Privacy: Issues, Policies, Statements - Children And Privacy

CHILDREN AND PRIVACY

The law views children as less capable of making well-reasoned judgments than adults, and there's a common understanding that children need special legal protections from harm and exploitation. Children are particularly vulnerable to manipulation by online marketers and more likely than adults to surrender personal or family information on the Web. In 1998, an FTC survey of 212 child-oriented Web sites concluded that although 89 percent of the sites collected personal data, 46 percent failed to notify users of that fact. In part to remedy such situations, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in 1998. COPPA, which took effect in 2000, prohibits organizations from gathering personal information online from children under age 13, unless their parents give "verifiable" consent before the information is collected or shared with third parties. Web-site operators must also post their privacy policies online and notify parents of the types of information that they collect.

It was unclear whether COPPA was effective. In 2001 the FTC cited survey data revealing that 91 percent of children's Web sites contained privacy policies, compared with only 24 percent in 1998. However, a report the same year by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center stated fewer than half of the 167 children's sites surveyed complied with COPPA guidelines.