Advocates Tell FTC: Facebook is violating children’s privacy law | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

Advocates Tell FTC: Facebook is violating children’s privacy law Complaint says controversial Messenger Kids app doesn’t comply with COPPA | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

ADVOCATES TELL FTC: FACEBOOK IS VIOLATING CHILDREN’S PRIVACY LAW COMPLAINT SAYS CONTROVERSIAL MESSENGER KIDS APP DOESN’T COMPLY WITH COPPA

Parent Coalition for Student Privacy signed onto this complaint to the FCC about Facebook’s violation of children’s privacy and the federal law known as COPPA via its Messenger for Kids app.
Contact: David Monahan, CCFC: david@commercialfreechildhood.org; 617-896-9397

BOSTON – Wednesday, October 3, 2018 – Today, a coalition of 17 public health advocacy groups called on the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) to investigate and take action against Facebook for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). The groups filed a complaint asserting that Messenger Kids, a controversial messaging application for children as young as five, collects kids’ personal information without obtaining verifiable parental consent or providing parents with clear and complete disclosures of Facebook’s data practices.

Messenger Kids is the first major social platform designed specifically for young children. The FTC complaint says that Facebook’s parental consent mechanism does not meet the requirements of COPPA because it’s not reasonably calculated to ensure that the person providing consent is actually the child’s parent. Any adult user can approve any Messenger Kids account, and testing confirmed that even a fictional “parent” holding a brand-new Facebook account could immediately approve a child’s account without proof of identity. The complaint also asserts that Facebook Messenger Kids’ privacy policy is incomplete and vague. The policy allows Facebook to disclose data to unnamed third parties and the “Facebook Family of Companies” for broad, undefined business purposes. The policy does not specify what companies are in the “Facebook Family.” COPPA requires that privacy policies list the name and contact information of any third parties who have access to children’s data.

The complaint was organized by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and drafted by the Communications & Technology Law Clinic in the Institute for Public Representation (“IPR”) at Georgetown University Law Center. “Despite Facebook’s promises to the contrary, Messenger Kids blatantly violates Continue reading: Advocates Tell FTC: Facebook is violating children’s privacy law Complaint says controversial Messenger Kids app doesn’t comply with COPPA | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy