New Regulations under Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) became effective April 21, 2000 and applies to the online collection of personal information from children under 13. The law demands that sites aimed at children require parental approval in order for minors under the age of 13 to use them.

Sites can choose to ban minors altogether in order to avoid having to comply with the law, as does Facebook. The COPPA rules spell out what a commercial website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online.

Mobile data, now included under the COPPA rule, was not commonly used or collected when COPPA was instituted. Starting July 1, 2013, the list of “personal information” that cannot be captured without parental consent will include geo-location information, photographs, audio files, and videos that contain a child’s image or voice, along with IP addresses and mobile device IDs.