COPPA Update Needed to Keep Parents Empowered, Fulfill Congressional Mandate, Brill Says

The FTC’s proposed COPPA updates have received “a bit of attention,” Brill said, including provisions that would expand the definition of “personally identifiable information” and change requirements for verifiable parental consent. “We understand that these are difficult issues,” she said, and the FTC appreciates the feedback it’s received from stakeholders. “We're deeply sensitive to creating a rule that will allow companies to innovate … and that will also fulfill Congress’s mandate to ensure that parents are informed.” Industry should engage in “a continued, careful deployment of today’s robust tech for the benefit of kids,” Brill said.

The FTC is capable of handling online privacy issues, said commission lawyer Manas Mohapatra on a FOSI panel Wednesday, speaking only for himself. Mohapatra pointed to the FTC Act, which allows the agency to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive businesses practices. Those protections are technology neutral, he said. “Those principles stand true” across different forms of technology, he said. Because of the Act’s “flexibility and its ability to adapt to emerging technologies,” the agency is equipped to handle privacy concerns amid an ever-evolving online landscape, he said. The FTC’s enforcement actions against unfair and deceptive practices, “in and of itself, is not enough to create trust for users,” Mohapatra said. The FTC also works with industry members to develop best practice standards to help bolster consumer privacy protections, he said. Policies like the Act need nuance to work with changing technology, said intellectual property lawyer Sheri Falco, on the International Foundation for Online Responsibility’s board. Generally, regulation is inflexible and “like a blunt object,” she said. “Regulation is often very slow, and technology, as we know, is very fast."

Governments often have to regulate things they don’t technically understand, said Judith Grant, of the secretariat of the U.K. Council for Child Internet Safety. “Government has to have a role” in protecting online privacy, she said, even if the government doesn’t understand every technical aspect of the technology it’s attempting to regulate. “You may not know how to get to the solution technologically,” she said. “But you're pretty confident that you know what you want.” The process to achieving and implementing that solution “has to be multistakeholder,” she said. “There is no way government can do it on its own."

"Education is a huge part” of navigating children’s online privacy issues, said Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, who spoke at FOSI Wednesday. Parents need to be educated about how their children share information online, he said, much like parents educated themselves about protecting their kids against online predators when that issue first gained national attention. “Parents get how to educate their kids now regarding what information to give on the Internet” to protect against online predators, he said: “Now that sort of changes when you get into social networking,” and parents have new things to learn to keep their kids safe online. Gansler, a Democrat, said his office is also working directly with Internet companies, like Facebook, “trying to figure out where that line is,” between concerns about online privacy on one hand, and on the other “legitimate business interests, because the Internet companies are doing great things."

The main concern is instilling in parents’ confidence about technologies their children use, said NetSafe New Zealand Executive Director Martin Cocker. “Trust, safety, call it what you like. The objective is confidence.” If parents are confident in the technology, they will allow their children to use that technology, and those children will grow up to be digital citizens, he said.