Reps Walberg, Castor Introduce Comprehensive Children's Privacy Bill Image

Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Kathy Castor (D-FL) introduced Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The bipartisan, bicameral COPPA 2.0 modernizes and strengthens the only online privacy law for children, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). 26 years after COPPA's enactment, COPPA 2.0 takes a multifaceted approach to adjust to the modern realities and threats children and teenagers face online in the digital age. Over 90 percent of parents agree that existing children’s privacy rules should be extended to teenagers. The need for a comprehensive set of protections to safeguard children's and teen’s privacy online has become significantly more urgent. The Surgeon General found that social media can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of minors, with one in three high school girls contemplating suicide in 2021. Platforms themselves have identified the negative mental health effects of their business models on young people. Provisions of the COPPA 2.0 bill are:

• Build on COPPA by prohibiting internet companies from collecting personal information from users who are 13 to 16 years old without their consent;
• Ban targeted advertising to children and teens;
• Revise COPPA’s “actual knowledge” standard to close the loophole that allows social media platforms to ignore kids and teens on their site;
• Create an “Eraser Button” by requiring companies to permit users to eliminate personal information from a child or teen when technologically feasible;
• Establish data minimization rules to prohibit the excessive collection of children and teens’ data.