FTC Grapples With Updating COPPA

Children's advocates, technology and legal experts, Web site operators and others struggled Wednesday to determine how best to adapt a 2000 rule implementing a law aimed at protecting children's privacy to the growing list of devices people are using to get online.

Among the issues experts at the FTC's first workshop on updating its rule implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act grappled with was whether the rule should be expanded to include new types of devices that people use to get online such as mobile phones and interactive gaming systems and whether the definition of personally identifiable information should be expanded. The law requires Web sites aimed at children under 13 or those with "actual knowledge" that they are collecting personally identifiable information from children under 13 to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from them. During the panel's first session, wireless and gaming industry representatives, legal and technology experts and a children's advocate debated what constitutes being online and what types of devices are children now using to get online. One area where there was some disagreement over was the use of gaming devices to get online.