Facebook’s next conquest: Kids?

Facebook wants to patent a system for letting children create accounts with parental supervision, a sign that the social network may be moving closer to extending membership to kids under 13.

The patent application describes in detail how a child seeking to join Facebook would first have to get a parent’s approval through the parent’s own Facebook account. Parents would then have the option to set privacy controls and to limit and monitor the kinds of content, friends and third-party applications available to the child.

Facebook currently bans children under 13, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg has signaled he’s interested in bringing kids into the fold, a move that could generate millions of new members. Adding children to the social network “will be a fight we take on at some point,” he said in 2011. “My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age.”

To expand membership to kids, Facebook would have to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a 1998 law that governs what kind of information companies can collect on kids under 13. The regulations, which were updated in 2013, require companies to get verified parental consent before collecting or sharing children’s personal information.

The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces COPPA, would likely have to approve any new method for proving a parent’s identity. Other websites and services geared toward children require parents to prove their identity by providing credit card information or faxing ID documents. An FTC spokesman declined to comment on whether Facebook had yet filed a proposal to the agency.