United States of America: FTC files complaint against WW for minor data collection

On 16 February 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Weight Watchers (WW) and its subsidiary, alleging that it has been marketing its application to children and collecting children's health data without obtaining parental consent. The FTC alleges that WW violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which mandates entities collecting data of children younger than 13 years to notify and obtain consent from their parents. Furthermore, the FTC claims that WW stored the personal data of children indefinitely in violation of the COPPA, which allows storing data of children under 13 years old only for a period of one year.