Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia’s article on COPPA, the 1998 U.S. federal law (effective 2000) restricting online collection of personal information from children under 13.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Key points
- Applies to sites “directed to children” under 13 (judged by subject matter, visual/audio style, and similar cues) or to any operator with actual knowledge a user under 13 is providing information.
- Requires a posted privacy policy, direct notice to parents, and verifiable parental consent before collecting from a known child — the FTC applies a sliding scale of verification methods (email plus, credit card, signed form, phone/video call, government-ID match) based on the collection’s risk.
- A 2013 update extended coverage to persistent identifiers (tracking cookies, device IDs) and added confidentiality/security safeguards for third-party disclosure.
- Parents must have a way to review, refuse further use of, or delete their child’s collected data.
- A 2024 “COPPA 2.0” proposal (passed the Senate 91–3) would extend coverage up to age 17; not yet enacted as of this writing.