UPDATED 11:09 EDT / SEPTEMBER 16 2011

FTC To Toughen Up Parental Controls for Mobile Web

As more children grow fonder of their mobile devices and mobile apps, parents are growing concerned with the apps their kids are downloading.  Though there are some legit and trustworthy educational or fun kids app, parents can’t really monitor their kids’ internet activity 24/7, especially those parents who are busy working.  Some apps require private information from their users, even kids, and most children these days tend to give pertinent information rather easily.  So the Federal Trade Commission aims to make some updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by soliciting comments and suggestions from parents, children advocates and other interested parties.  Deadline for submitting comments to the FTC will be on November 28.  Revisions will be focused on five areas including parental notice, the definition of personal information, and the confidentiality and security of children’s personal information.

“In this era of rapid technological change, kids are often tech savvy but judgment poor. We want to ensure that the COPPA Rule is effective in helping parents protect their children online, without unnecessarily burdening online businesses,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in a statement.

“We look forward to the continuing thoughtful input from industry, children’s advocates, and other stakeholders as we work to update the Rule.”

The FTC aims to redefine personal information and wants to include geolocation information, as well as other kinds of identifiers such as “tracking cookies used for behavioral advertising, as well providing streamlined or real-time parental notices for applications, and not just a privacy policy the end user “reads” before downloading an app.  The FTC also proposes additional methods to obtain verifiable parental consent, including electronic scans of signed parental consent forms, video-conferencing, and use of government-issued identification checked against a database, provided that the parent’s ID is deleted promptly after verification is complete.

The most important update is that the FTC wants to strengthen rules regarding confidentiality and security of children’s personal information.

“Specifically, the Commission proposes adding a requirement that operators ensure that any service providers or third-parties to whom they disclose a child’s personal information have in place reasonable procedures to protect it, that operators retain the information for only as long as is reasonably necessary, and that they properly delete that information by taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to, or use in connection with, its disposal.”

Common Sense Media is glad that the FTC finally realized the importance of sharpening the fangs of COPPA to protect children 13 and below from online malicious activities as well mobile app downloads.  But the FTC rules don’t extend to teenagers as Kathryn Montgomery, an American University professor who pushed for COPPA’s passage in 1998, stated that “some of the mechanisms for protecting younger children are not appropriate for older youth as they are entitled to fair information practices in the digital marketplace. We urge the FTC to address this issue in its forthcoming new comprehensive privacy framework report.”


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