San Francisco, California, USA – X Reality Safety Intelligence (XRSI), a global leader in privacy, safety, and security in immersive and emerging technologies, today announces its strong support for the Kids PRIVACY Act, recently reintroduced by the U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL14). The legislation aims to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and implement more robust protections to keep children and teenagers safe online while holding Big Tech companies accountable for their surveillance and targeting of young users.
“Children are spending more time online than ever before, and it’s time that Congress address the evolving online landscape, especially the tracking and data gathering that has vastly outpaced online privacy protections for kids,” said Rep. Castor. “I’m proud to reintroduce my Kids PRIVACY Act, endorsed by parents, safety advocates and pediatricians to update COPPA, protect children online, and hold Big Tech accountable. Parents and families deserve a 21st century privacy law that can contend with a 21st century internet. Companies continue to knowingly target kids, and it is past time they are penalized for violating privacy protections. Let’s come to the table, Democrats and Republicans, to strengthen protections for our youngest neighbors and bring these safeguards into modern day.”
Kavya Pearlman, Founder and CEO of XR Safety Initiative, stated, “In this age of rapid technological advancement, it is crucial to ensure the privacy and safety of our children and teenagers. We commend Rep. Castor for her unwavering commitment to protecting young people in the digital world. The Kids PRIVACY Act is a vital step toward ensuring that the best interests of children and teenagers are at the forefront of service design and that their privacy rights are respected.”
The Kids PRIVACY Act expands privacy protections for children and teenagers by:
- Banning Companies from Providing Targeted Advertisements to Children and Teenagers: Prohibits companies from targeting children and teenagers based on their personal information and behavior.
- Best Interests of Children and Teenagers: Requires an operator to make the best interests of children and teenagers a primary design consideration when designing its service.
- Requiring Opt-In Consent for all Individuals Under 18: Companies must obtain specific, informed, and unambiguous opt-in consent before collecting, retaining, selling, sharing, or using a young consumer or child’s personal information.
- Creating a Right to Access, Correct, and Delete Personal Information: Companies must provide individuals the opportunity to access, correct, or delete their personal information at any time.
- Protecting Additional Types of Information: Expands the type of information explicitly covered to include physical characteristics, biometric information, health information, education information, contents of messages and calls, browsing and search history, geolocation information, and latent audio or visual recordings.
- Requiring User-Friendly Privacy Policies: Companies must make publicly available privacy policies that are clear, easily understood, and written in plain and concise language.
- Creating a Protected Class of “Teenagers” Ages 13-17: For the first time in statute, the bill provides protection for teenagers 13-17, allowing them to control who collects their personal information and what companies can do with it.
- Expands Coverage of Companies: Applies to all sites likely to be accessed by children and teens, not just child-directed services.
- Limiting Disclosure to Third Parties: The bill prohibits companies from sharing personal information without consent. Furthermore, it creates additional duties companies must comply with before disclosing any personal information with third parties.
- Requiring Reasonable Data Security Policies, Practices, and Procedures: Requires companies to have a written security policy, point of contact for information security management and processes to identify, assess, and mitigate vulnerabilities.
- Prohibiting Industry Self-Regulation: Repeals dangerous safe harbor provisions that allow for lax enforcement and rubber stamping of potentially unlawful practices.
- Strengthening FTC Enforcement: Raises the maximum allowable civil penalty per violation by 50 percent and allows the FTC to pursue punitive damages. Also establishes a Youth Privacy and Marketing Division at the FTC.
- Providing for Parental Enforcement: Parents will be able to bring civil actions to help enforce the bill and any resulting regulations.
- Banning Forced Arbitration: In a much-needed reversal of current law, companies will no longer be able force their consumers to waive their right to sue.
For more information please contact Jessica Ray, representative at the XRSI Child Safety Initiative below:
Jessica Ray | Program Manager – XRSI Child Safety Initiative | Jessica@xrsi.org
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