Children's Digital Privacy Issues Stir Emotions

Privacy experts traded barbs during a tense panel discussion on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which revealed just how difficult legislating privacy issues can be.

Disagreement among the speakers and audience members nearly put an end to the discussion, but enough order was restored to shed light on a few important facets of the decade-old COPPA law and how it might be improved upon. During the session at the Family Online Safety Institute's annual conference, several panelists discussed whether the Federal Trade Commission should increase the age of children covered by COPPA from 13 to 18 in order to offer its protections to teenagers. As it stands, the law restricts how operators of commercial websites and online services can collect information about children under the age of 13. Both panel and audience members, however, raised doubts about the prospects that the FTC would include teens up to 18 in any revisions made to COPPA.