EPIC Advises FTC to Strengthen the COPPA Rule to Protect Student Privacy

December 11, 2019

EPIC today submitted comments to the FTC on the agency's regulatory review of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rules. EPIC said the FTC should : (1) maintain the strong safeguards for children's data, (2) reject the "school official exception", (3) the FTC define the term "commercial purpose" and ensure that children's personal data collected in schools is not transferred to EdTech companies; and (4) the FTC require notification within forty-eights of a data breach of children's data by a company subject to COPPA. EPIC said "the FTC must now establish clear safeguards for children's data gathered in schools." EPIC testified before Congress in 1996 in support of the original children's privacy law. The FTC previously considered EPIC's recommendations in an early review of the COPPA Rule and incorporated several of EPIC's recommendations in the 2013 regulations.

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