Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

Video Transcription

Hello and welcome everyone. My name is San Giuliano, and in today's lesson we're going to look at some important measures that are in place including CIPA, the Children's Internet Protection Act, that helps to protect our students from potential dangers that come from living in a digital world. Let's get started.

Let's begin by looking at COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. It was passed by congress in 1998 and took effect in year 2000. It was designed to issue regulations concerning children's online privacy. Technologies have changed quite a bit since then, therefore it was amended by the Federal Trade Commission in 2012. This broadened the law to reflect the evolving technologies.

Now to the main focus of this lesson, the Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA. CIPA imposes certain requirements on schools or libraries that, in turn, qualify them for discounts on internet access or internal connections through the E-rate program. The E-rate program makes certain communication services and products more affordable. This law was also expanded in 2011 to include new technologies.

There are other features of the Children's Internet Protection Act that I would like to highlight. It calls for schools and libraries to have an internet safety policy that blocks or filters access to pictures that are obscene or harmful to minors. Also, school districts must provide reasonable notice and hold at least one public meeting, or hearing, before adopting a policy.

Next, those policies must include the monitoring of online behaviors of minors. And finally, as required by the Protecting Children's in the 21st Century Act, schools must take responsibility for teaching minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with others on social networking sites and in chat rooms, and cyber bullying awareness and response. Their website is listed at the bottom of this page.

Keep in mind that both COPPA and CIPA are not complete policies, but regulations and guidelines that should be considered in development of school and district policies. If you visit the website at the bottom of the slide, you will find a checklist that you can use to help you ensure that your school is following the guidelines and is eligible for the special pricing.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act makes it unlawful for an operator of a website or online service to collect personal information from a child in the manner that violates the regulations. In order for a site or an app to be in compliance with COPPA, there are requirements that must be met. For instance, they must describe and tell how any information is being collected and in what way it will be used.

They need to obtain consent from parents before collecting, using, or disclosing information about a child. They must provide parents with the opportunity to remove or change information. They must provide contact information for those collecting and maintaining the data. And finally, they need to maintain reasonable procedures to protect the information that they collect.

It's time to summarize what we covered in this lesson. We introduced COPPA, the Children's Online privacy Protection Act and CIPA, the Children's Internet Protection Act and we looked at the requirements for each.

Now it's time for a little food for thought. Reach out to your school leaders to ensure that your district is in compliance with the regulations that we mentioned in this video.

To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the additional resources section that is associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted towards helping you discover more ways to apply this course material. As always, thanks so much for watching. Have a great day.