COPPA: Legal protection for students' online privacy

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we are going to be discussing a law called COPPA, which is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. For today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Herbert Hoover, which states, "Children are our most valuable natural resource." I think we can all agree that this is true. And one of the ways, especially when we're dealing with digital technology, in order to protect our most valuable resource, is to make sure that we have laws in place that assure those protections.

All right. By the end of the lesson. today, you are going to be able to explain what COPPA is. You'll be able to identify to whom COPPA and all of its elements applies. You'll be able to describe what is considered personal information according to this law. And you'll be able to explain the specific COPPA requirements.

So first of all, what is COPPA? Well COPPA stands for the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Now this was originally passed by Congress in 1998. But it didn't take effect until the year 2000. It was initially designed in order to help issue regulations concerning children being online and their privacy as they were interacting online. At about this time was when really a lot of technology was getting integrated into the schools. And it was becoming more and more common in households.

So children were beginning to get online, were starting to just peek in various social networking, and emailing, checking out different web sites, and input their information. And it was pretty clear that there needed to be a way in order to protect our children. Now this act was amended by the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, in 2012. The goal of which was to account for different evolving technologies. The laws needed to reflect the many different ways that children and youth were now beginning to interact online. Obviously, it wasn't just with a hard wired computer at home anymore or at school, but all of the various different ways kids could get online, and what kind of new information they were now able to share.

So next, let's take a look at to whom COPPA applies. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act is explicitly applied towards operators of websites and various online services. Now these aren't all websites and online services, but those that are geared towards children under the age of 13 and collect personal information from those children. It also applies to the operators of those websites and online services that are geared toward any general audience, but still could possibly collect personal information. It also includes those websites and services which collect information from other sites that could collect personal information from children under 13.

As you can see, COPPA really has a wide, expansive approach. And this is essential in ensuring that there aren't any loopholes to get at that personal information. It's also important to note that in some cases, COPPA can apply to various advertising networks or different plugins or third parties that would interact with these various websites and could then glean information from them. The goal of the law is that it could be applied to any possible party that's trying to get at the information of those children.

Next, let's take a look at what is considered personal information by COPPA. If COPPA is saying that this applies to anyone collecting that personal information, what does personal information really mean? Well personal information can include a lot of things, such as a child's name, or their home, or email address. It also applies to a child or their family's telephone number, their social security number. And then it has expanded, to given our new technologies, geolocation data. This is any sort of information that is tagged or adapted from things that are taken by that technology. So for example, when someone sends a text message from a certain location or takes a picture, certain technologies now have geolocation information, so that it can actually pick up where that picture was taken. And this covers that personal information.

It also applies to any photos, videos, or audio of children. This includes anything that could be passed by an adult user, but of a child that is under the age of 13. Finally, it includes any unique identifiers or the IP address of the information or the technology that child could be using.

So next, let's take a look at what are the requirements of COPPA? If you are a website or a service provider that meets any of those criteria that were established before, here are all of the things that you need to make sure you are doing in order to stay legal under the law. So first and foremost, the website needs to link to a clear privacy policy. And that policy needs to be on the front page or the home page. We've all read those 700 page documents of exceptionally difficult material to understand. And you just check the box off and say, yes, I agree. The requirement for the law is that it's clearly linked so someone can read it. And then ideally, in theory, it is clearly written.

You're also wired to describe the information being collected. The website needs to be clear, with anyone reading it, what specific information they are trying to get. You need to provide how information is being collected. What's the manner in which the website is getting that information? They need to explain how that information then is being used. Are they keeping it themselves, in order to recommend other websites? Are they selling out that personal information to other companies to make money, so that letters or various advertisements can be sent out? What is the information being used for?

The website also needs to provide specific contact information on the collectors. This ensures that if there are any issues, that it's easy to contact a collector. And this might seem like an unnecessary element. But it's really, really important. So many online websites now are going away from a user help center, to the point where it's almost impossible to contact anyone specifically in charge of what is being done on some of these websites.

It also requires that the website obtain parental consent before collection. This means that a parent or guardian, or at least someone who says they are a parent or guardian, is consenting to any of this identity collection or personal information collection before it happens.

It also states that the website must provide parents the opportunity to review the information that's being collected about their child. This allows for the opportunity to remove or change any information that the parent doesn't feel like it's appropriate to be collected on their children. Finally, it requires that websites maintain protection procedures. This means that they have ways, reasonable ways, in order to protect the information that's being collected, to ensure that the intention of the website isn't being misused or being hacked, so that information isn't falling into the wrong hands.

Now, the one caveat that I will say about this is that all of these are ideal situations. But anyone who has worked with children, especially children in middle school or high school, understand that they're not always going to run to their parents and say, mom, dad, can you please check this information off before I get onto this website? So there are some issues, even when this law is in place, with the actual carrying out of the intention of the law.

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, let's review. You should now be able to explain what COPPA, or the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, is. You should be able to identify to whom COPPA actually applies, describe what is considered personal information according to COPPA, and you should be able to explain the various COPPA requirements.

Now I would like to take just a moment for reflection. Now that you've learned about COPPA and its requirements, what might be the first step you would take to begin implementing these elements in your classroom? Feel free to pause the video as you take a second to answer that question. Later on, to dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.

That's all we have for now. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.