Reps Rush, Walberg Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Protect Children's Online Privacy

Reps Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Tim Walberg (R-MI) introduced the Preventing Real Online Threats Endangering Children Today (PROTECT) Kids Act. This bipartisan legislation modernizes the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to better protect our nation’s children from the myriad of threats posed by an ever-evolving digital landscape. The PROTECT Kids Act:

• Raises the age of parental consent protections from children under the age of 13 to children under the age of 16;
• Adds precise geolocation information and biometric information as two new categories of personal information which are protected under COPPA;
• Affirms that rules under COPPA also include protections to children on mobile applications in addition to already existing rules for websites and online services;
• Provides parents the ability to delete any personal information about their child, a feature never before afforded to parents under COPPA to protect their children; and
• Requires the FTC to conduct a study on the knowledge standard found in COPPA and report recommendations to Congress.