program areas Digital Youth

Center for Digital DemocracyWashington, DCContact: Katharina Kopp, kkopp@democraticmedia.org  Statement Regarding the FTC 6(b) Study on Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services -“A Look Behind the Screens Examining the Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services”The following statement can be attributed to Katharina Kopp, Ph.D., Deputy Director,Center for Digital Democracy:The Center for Digital Democracy welcomes the release of the FTC’s 6(b) study on social media and video streaming providers’ data practices and it evidence-based recommendations.In 2019, Fairplay (then the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC)), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), and 27 other organizations, and their attorneys at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation urged the Commission to use its 6(b) authority to better understand how tech companies collect and use data from children.The report’s findings show that social media and video streaming providers’ s business model produces an insatiable hunger for data about people. These companies create a vast surveillance apparatus sweeping up personal data and creating an inescapable matrix of AI applications. These data practices lead to numerous well-documented harms, particularly for children and teens. These harms include manipulation and exploitation, loss of autonomy, discrimination, hate speech and disinformation, the undermining of democratic institutions, and most importantly, the pervasive mental health crisis among the youth.The FTC's call for comprehensive privacy legislation is crucial in curbing the harmful business model of Big Tech. We support the FTC’s recommendation to better protect teens but call, specifically, for a ban on targeted advertising to do so. We strongly agree with the FTC that companies should be prohibited from exploiting young people's personal information, weaponizing AI and algorithms against them, and using their data to foster addiction to streaming videos.That is why we urge this Congress to pass COPPA 2.0 and KOSA which will compel Big Tech companies to acknowledge the presence of children and teenagers on their platforms and uphold accountability. The responsibility for rectifying the flaws in their data-driven business model rests with Big Tech, and we express our appreciation to the FTC for highlighting this important fact. ________________The Center for Digital Democracy is a public interest research and advocacy organization, established in 2001, which works on behalf of citizens, consumers, communities, and youth to protect and expand privacy, digital rights, and data justice. CDD’s predecessor, the Center for Media Education, lead the campaign for the passage of COPPA over 25 years ago in 1998.

Center for Digital Democracy                                                                                 Washington, DC       July 30, 2024                                                                                                                  Contact: Katharina Kopp, kkopp@democraticmedia.org Statement Regarding the U.S. Senate Vote to Advance the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (S. 2073). The following statement can be attributed to Katharina Kopp, Ph.D., Deputy Director,Center for Digital Democracy: Today is a milestone in the decades long effort to protect America’s young people from the harmful impacts caused by the out-of-control and unregulated social and digital media business model. The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA), if passed by the House and enacted into law, will safeguard children and teens from digital marketers who manipulate and employ unfair data-driven marketing tactics to closely surveil, profile, and target young people.  These include an array of ever-expanding tactics that are discriminatory and unfair. The new law would protect children and teens being exposed to addictive algorithms and other harmful practices across online platforms, protecting the mental health and well-being of youth and their families. Building on the foundation of the 25-year-old Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), KOSPA will provide protections to teens under 17. It will prohibit targeted advertising to children and teens, impose data minimization requirements, and compel companies to acknowledge the presence of young online users on their platforms and apps. The safety by design provisions will necessitate the disabling of addictive product features and the option for users to opt out of addictive algorithmic recommender systems. Companies will be obliged to prevent and mitigate harms to children, such as bullying and violence, promotion of suicide, eating disorders, and sexual exploitation. Crucially, most of these safeguards will be automatically implemented, relieving children, teens, and their families of the burden to take further action. The responsibility to rectify the worst aspects of their data-driven business model will lie squarely with Big Tech, as it should have all along. We express our gratitude for the leadership and support of Majority Leader Schumer, Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz, and Senators Blumenthal, Blackburn, Markey, Cassidy, along with their staff, for making this historic moment possible in safeguarding children and teens online. Above all, we are thankful to all the parents and families who have tirelessly advocated for common-sense safeguards. We now urge the House of Representatives to act upon their return from the August recess. The time for hesitation is over. About the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD)The Center for Digital Democracy is a public interest research and advocacyorganization, established in 2001, which works on behalf of citizens, consumers, communities, and youth to protect and expand privacy, digital rights, and data justice. CDD’s predecessor, the Center for Media Education, lead the campaign for the passage of COPPA over 25 years ago, in 1998.

"Children and Teens Need Effective Privacy Protections Now"“We have two reactions to the legislation the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Innovation plans to consider on Thursday.  On the one hand, we appreciate that the subcommittee is taking up the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) as a standalone bill, as we had recommended. Congressional action to make the internet safer for kids and teens is long overdue, so we welcome this step tomorrow. As the Members know, KOSA has 69 co-sponsors in the Senate, has bi-partisan support in both houses, and has overwhelming popular support across the country as demonstrated by numerous public polls and in the strong advocacy actions in the Capitol and elsewhere. “On the other hand, we are very disappointed in the privacy legislation the subcommittee will take up as it relates to children and teens. We have always maintained, and the facts are clear on this, that stronger data privacy protections for kids and teens should go hand in hand with new social media platform guardrails. The bi-partisan COPPA 2.0 (H.R. 7890), to update the 25- year-old children's privacy law, is not being considered as a standalone bill on Thursday. And further, we are very disappointed with the revised text of the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) discussion draft as it relates to children and teen privacy. “When the APRA discussion draft was first unveiled on April 7th, we understood Committee leadership to say that the bill would need stronger youth privacy protections. More than a month later, there are no new effective protections for youth in the new draft that was released at 10:00 pm last night, compared with the original discussion draft from April. The new APRA discussion draft purports to include COPPA 2.0 (as Title II) but does not live up to the standalone COPPA 2.0 legislation introduced in the House last month, and supported on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, in terms of protections for children and teens. Furthermore, the youth provisions in APRA’s discussion draft appear impossible to implement without additional clarifications. Lastly, in addition to these highly significant shortcomings, we are also concerned that Title II of the new APRA draft may actually weaken current privacy protections for children, by limiting coverage of sites and services. “Children and teens need effective privacy protections now. We expect the Committee to do better than this, and we look forward to working with them to make sure that once and for all Congress puts kids and teens first when it comes to privacy and online safety.” Signed: Center for Digital Democracy, Common Sense Media, and Fairplay

Read the attached letter.

COPPA 2.0 provides a comprehensive approach to safeguarding children’s and teen’s privacy via data minimization and a prohibition on targeted advertising – it’s not “just” about “notice and consent”We commend Rep. Walberg (R-Mich.) and Rep. Castor (D-FL) for introducing the House COPPA 2.0 companion bill. The bill enjoys strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate. We urge the House to promptly markup HR 7890 and pass it into law. Any delay in bringing HR 7890 to a vote would expose children, adolescents, and their families to greater harm.Learn more about the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act here: Background:The United States is currently facing a commercial surveillance crisis. Digital giants invade our private lives, spy on our families, deploy manipulative and unfair data-driven marketing practices, and exploit our most personal information for profit. These reckless practices are leading to unacceptable invasions of privacy, discrimination, and public health harms.In particular, the United States faces a youth mental health crisis fueled, in part, by Big Tech. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children’s mental health has reached a national emergency status. The Center for Disease Control found that in 2021, one in three high school girls contemplated suicide, one in ten high school girls attempted suicide, and among LGBTQ+ youth, more than one in five attempted suicide. As the Surgeon General concluded in a report last year, “there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”Platforms’ data practices and their prioritization of profit over the well-being of America’s youth significantly contribute to the crisis. The lack of privacy protections for children and teens has led to a decline in young people’s well-being. Platforms rely on vast amounts of data to create detailed profiles of young individuals to target them with tailored ads. To achieve this, addictive design features are employed, keeping young users online for longer periods of time and exacerbating the youth mental health crisis. The formula is simple: more addiction equals more data and more targeted ads which translates into greater profits for Big Tech. In fact, according to a recent Harvard study, in 2022, the major Big Tech platforms earned nearly $11 billion in ad revenue from U.S. users under age 17.The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) modernizes and strengthens the only online privacy law for children, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA was passed over 25 years ago and is crucially in need of an update, including the extension of safeguards to teens. Passed by the Senate out of Committee, Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Kathy Castor (D-FL) introduced COPPA 2.0 in the House in April. It’s time now for the House to act. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act would:-              Build on COPPA and extend privacy safeguards to users who are 13 to 16 years of age;-              Require strong data minimization safeguards prohibiting the excessive collection, use, and sharing of children’s and teens’ data; COPPA 2.0 would:Prohibit the collection, use or disclosure or maintenance of personal information for purposes of targeted advertising;Prohibit the collection of personal information except when the collection is consistent with the context and necessary to fulfill a transaction or service or provide a product or service requested;Prohibit the retention of personal information for longer than is reasonably necessary to fulfill a transaction or provide a service;Prohibit conditioning a child’s or teen’s participation on the child’s or teen’s disclosing more personal information than is reasonably necessary.Except for certain internal permissible operations purposes of the operator, all other data collection or disclosures require parental or teen consent.-              Ban targeted advertising to children and teens;-              Provide for parental or teen controls;It would provide for the right to correct or delete personal information collected from  a child or teen or content or information submitted by a child or teen to a website – when technologically feasible.-              Revise COPPA’s “actual knowledge” standard to close the loophole that allows covered platforms to ignore kids and teens on their site.  But what about….?…Notice and Consent, doesn’t COPPA 2.0 rely on the so-called “notice and consent” approach and isn’t the consensus that this is an ineffective way to protect privacy online?No, COPPA 2.0 does not rely on “notice and consent”. It would provide a comprehensive approach to safeguarding children’s and teen’s privacy via data minimization. It appropriately restricts companies’ ability to collect, use, and share personal information of children and teens by default. The consent mechanism is just one additional safeguard. 1.        By default COPPA 2.0 would prohibitthe collection, use or disclosure or maintenance of personal information for purposes of targeted advertising to children and teens - this is a flat out ban, consent is not required.the collection of personal information except when the collection is consistent with the context of the relationship and necessary to fulfill a transaction or service or provide a product or service requested of the relationship of the child/teen with the operator.the retention of personal information for longer than is reasonably necessary to fulfill a transaction or provide a service. 2.        By extending COPPA protections to teens, COPPA 2.0 would further limit data collection from children and teens as COPPA 2.0 would prohibitconditioning a child’s or teen’s participation in a game, the offering of a prize, or another activity on the child’s or teen’s disclosing more personal information than is reasonably necessary to participate in such activity. 3.        Any other personal information that companies would want to collect, use, or disclose requires parental consent or the consent of a teen, except for certain internal permissible operations purposes of the operator. COPPA 2.0's data minimization provisions prevent the collection, use, disclosure, and retention of excessive data from the start. By not collecting or retaining unnecessary data, harmful, manipulative, and exploitative business practices will be prevented. The consent provision is important but plays a relatively small role in the privacy safeguards of COPPA 2.0.  But what about….?…targeted advertising, don’t we need a clear ban of targeted advertising to children and teens?Yes, and COPPA 2.0 bans targeted advertising while allowing for contextual advertising.Under COPPA 2.0 it is unlawful for an operator "to collect, use, disclose to third parties, or maintain personal information of a child or teen for purposes of individual-specific advertising to children or teens (or to allow another person to collect, use, disclose, or maintain such information for such purpose).” But what about….?…the transfer of personal information to third parties?Yes, COPPA 2.0 requires verifiable consent by a parent or teen for the disclosure or transfer of personal information to a third party, except for certain internal permissible operations purposes of the operator. Verifiable consent must be obtained before collection, use, and disclosure of personal information via direct notice of the personal information collection, use, and disclosure practices of the operator. Any material changes from the original purposes also require verifiable consent.(Note that the existing COPPA rule requires that an operator gives a parent the option to consent to the collection and use of the child's personal information without consenting to the disclosure of his or her personal information to third parties under 312.5(a)(2). The FTC recently proposed to bolster this provision under the COPPA rule update.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact:David Monahan, Fairplay: david@fairplayforkids.org Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy: jeff@democraticmedia.org Children’s Advocates Urge the Federal Trade Commission toEnact 21st Century Privacy Protections for Children More than ten years since last review, organizations urge the FTC to updatethe Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)  WASHINGTON, DC — Tuesday, March 12, 2024 – A coalition of eleven leading health, privacy, consumer protection, and child rights groups has filed comments at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offering a digital roadmap for stronger safeguards while also supporting many of the agency’s key proposals for updating its regulations implementing the bipartisan Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).   Comments submitted by Fairplay, the Center for Digital Democracy,  the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other advocacy groups supported many of the changes the commission proposed in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued in December 2023. The groups, however, told the FTC that a range of additional protections are required to address the “Big Data” and Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven commercial surveillance marketplace operating today, where children and their data are a highly prized and sought after target across online platforms and applications. “The ever-expanding system of commercial surveillance marketing online that continually tracks and targets children must be reined in now,” said Katharina Kopp, Deputy Director, Director of Policy, Center for Digital Democracy.  “The FTC and children’s advocates have offered a digital roadmap to ensure that data gathered by children have the much-needed safeguards. With kids being a key and highly lucrative target desired by platforms, advertisers, and marketers, and with growing invasive tactics such as AI used to manipulate them, we call on the FTC to enact 21st-century rules that place the privacy and well-being of children first.” “In a world where streaming and gaming, AI-powered chatbots, and ed tech in classrooms are exploding, children's online privacy is as important as ever,” said Haley Hinkle, Policy Counsel, Fairplay.  “Fairplay and its partners support the FTC's efforts to ensure the COPPA Rule meets kids' and families' needs, and we lay out the ways in which the Rule addresses current industry practices. COPPA is a critical tool for keeping Big Tech in check, and we urge the Commission to adopt the strongest possible Rule in order to protect children into the next decade of technological advancement.” While generally supporting the commission’s proposal that provides parents or caregivers greater control over a child’s data collection via their consent, the groups told the commission that a number of improvements and clarifications are required to ensure that privacy protections for a child’s data are effectively implemented.  They include issues such as: ●      The emerging risks posed to children by AI-powered chatbots and biometric data collection.●      The need to apply COPPA’s data minimization requirements to data collection, use, and retention to reduce the amount of children’s data in the audience economy and to limit targeted marketing.●      The applicability of the Rule’s provisions – including notice and the separate parental consent for collection and disclosure consent and data minimization requirements – to the vast networks of third parties that claim to share children’s data in privacy safe ways, including “clean rooms”, but still utilize young users’ personal information for marketing.●      The threats posed to children by ed tech platforms and the necessity of strict limitations on any use authorized by schools.●      The need for clear notice, security program, and privacy program requirements in order to effectively realize COPPA’s limitations on the collection, use, and sharing of personal information. The 11 organizations that signed on to the comments are: the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD); Fairplay; American Academy of Pediatrics; Berkeley Media Studies Group; Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development; Consumer Federation of America; Center for Humane Technology; Eating Disorders Coalition for Research, Policy, & Action; Issue One; Parents Television and Media Council; and U.S. PIRG. ### 

Contact:David Monahan, Fairplay, david@fairplayforkids.org Jeff Chester, CDD, jeff@democraticmedia.org Leading Advocates for Children Applaud FTC Update of COPPA RuleFairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy see a crucial step toward creating safer online experiences for kids WASHINGTON, DC — December 20, 2023—The Federal Trade Commission has proposed its first update of rules protecting children’s privacy in a decade.  Under the bipartisan Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), children under 13 currently have a set of core safeguards designed to control and limit how their data can be gathered and used.   The COPPA Rules were last revised in 2012, and today’s proposed changes offer new protections to ensure young people can go online without losing control over their personal information.  These new rules would help create a safer, more secure, and healthier online environment for them and their families—precisely at a time when they face growing threats to their wellbeing and safety.  The provisions offered today are especially needed to address the emerging methods used by platforms and other digital marketers who target children to collect their data, including through the growing use of AI and other techniques. Haley Hinkle, Policy Counsel, Fairplay:“The FTC’s recent COPPA enforcement actions against Epic Games, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta demonstrated that Big Tech does not have carte blanche with kids’ data. With this critical rule update, the FTC has further delineated what companies must do to minimize data collection and retention and ensure they are not profiting off of children’s information at the expense of their privacy and wellbeing. Anyone who believes that children deserve to explore and play online without being tracked and manipulated should support this update.” Katharina Kopp, Ph.D., Director of Policy, Center for Digital Democracy:“Children face growing threats as platforms, streaming and gaming companies, and other marketers pursue them for their data, attention, and profits.  Today’s FTC’s proposed COPPA rule update provides urgently needed online safeguards to help stem the tidal wave of personal information gathered on kids. The commission’s plan will limit data uses involving children and help prevent companies from exploiting their information. These rules will also protect young people from being targeted through the increasing use of AI, which now further fuels data collection efforts. Young people 12 and under deserve a digital environment that is designed to be safer for them and that fosters their health and well-being.  With this proposal, we should soon see less online manipulation, purposeful addictive design, and fewer discriminatory marketing practices.” ###