United States of America: Announced FTC amendments to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA)

On 20 December 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed amendments to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). The amendments aim to impose additional restrictions on the use and disclosure of children's personal information, limit companies' ability to monetize children's data, and shift the responsibility for ensuring the safety of digital services from parents to service providers. In particular, the amendments include requiring a separate opt-in for targeted advertising, prohibiting the conditioning of a child's participation on the collection of excessive personal information, limiting the support for the internal operations exception, requiring online notice and transparency, prohibiting the use of online contact information and persistent identifiers to prompt children to stay online. Furthermore, the amendments would introduce changes related to educational technology, allowing use only for school-authorised educational purposes, increasing transparency and accountability for COPPA Safe Harbor programs, strengthening data security requirements with the establishment of a written children's personal information security program, and imposing limits on data retention, allowing retention only for specific purposes and prohibiting indefinite retention. Additionally, the FTC proposes adjustments to definitions, such as expanding "personal information" to include biometric identifiers. The public has 60 days to comment on the proposed amendments after the notice of rulemaking is published in the Federal Register.