14 DAY TRIAL // The Federal Trade Commission will bring modifications to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act as an update that should realign regulations to modern technological tendencies.
Even though the proposition is not welcomed by some of the heavyweights who build marketing campaigns around children, the measures are applauded by those who fight for the rights to privacy.
The new regulations mainly focus on the impact of social media and mobile devices on the lives of youngsters under 13. Basically, everyone aged under 13 will be protected, parent approval and consent being necessary for almost everything.
According to Wired, kids in the U.S. will not be allowed to post pictures of themselves on social networking sites such as Facebook and it will be forbidden for companies to track them via GPS or other tracking means for marketing purposes.
It seems as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg already suggested that his "empire" would like to expand for those well-underage children who lie about their age just to create profiles. Unfortunately, this would only be possible if federal laws would change.
“With more than 7.5 million Facebook users under the age of 13, we hope these COPPA revisions will be implemented and enforced as soon as possible,” revealed in a statement James Steyer, Common Sense Media’s chief executive.
The tracking of juveniles “for purposes such as user authentication, improving site navigation, maintaining user preferences, serving contextual advertisements, and protecting against fraud or theft,” will be possible but every other intent will require parent permission.
Youths will not be allowed "to make personal information publicly available through a chat room, message board, or other means, except where the operator deletes all individually identifiable information from postings by children before they are made public, and also deletes such information from the operator’s records.”
While some of the things encapsulated into the proposal are encouraged, other things raise concerns. A policy group from Washington D.C. fears that things such as “government-issued identifications” from parents in which they express consent for certain activities might make them less open minded when faced with something that raises privacy concerns.