NOTE: DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH CalOPPA, which is for California users.
Description
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | This service is COPPA compliant |
| Rating |  |
| Weight | 20 |
| Topic | Jurisdiction and Governing Laws |
| Description | This service complies with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which limits the collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. |
| DDG Checkbox |
Reasoning
COPPA has both been harmful and helpful. However, we can’t deny that this is a positive regulation that aims to protect the personal information of minors. If you don’t take legal vacuums into account (which is its own can of worms), social media sites and other predatory services have been curbed in part because of this regulation.
COPPA is not perfect, by far. Governments enforcing “but what about the children?” regulations have harmful effects usually. However, I think COPPA better than… other regulations, for sure.
Also, this COPPA Compliance Checklist seems to be alright for most services
- Post a clear and comprehensive online privacy policy describing their information practices for personal information collected online from persons under age 13;
- Make reasonable efforts (taking into account available technology) to provide direct notice to parents of the operator’s practices with regard to the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information from persons under 13, including notice of any material change to such practices to which the parents have previously consented;
- Obtain verifiable parental consent, with limited exceptions, prior to any collection, use, and/or disclosure of personal information from persons under age 13;
- Provide a reasonable means for a parent to review the personal information collected from their child and to refuse to permit its further use or maintenance;
- Establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the personal information collected from children under age 13, including by taking reasonable steps to disclose/release such personal information only to parties capable of maintaining its confidentiality and security;
- Retain personal information collected online from a child for only as long as is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected and delete the information using reasonable measures to protect against its unauthorized access or use; and
- Operators are prohibited from conditioning a child’s participation in an online activity on the child providing more information than is reasonably necessary to participate in that activity.
But what are your thoughts?