On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission voted 5-0 to adopt a policy statement advising education technology businesses against exploiting data gathered from children through education services for extra commercial objectives, such as marketing and advertising.
The policy statement clarifies how businesses should follow rules established by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, and proclaims that the FTC would “vigilantly enforce the law” in light of Thursday’s policy adjustments.
“Kids have a right to learn in private,” said Democratic commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who was sworn in at the Thursday meeting.
According to Bedoya, the business now places lower-income students, who are more likely to use free applications, at a larger risk of having their data gathered and utilized.
The regulator is taking a strong position against the business, which is violating current children’s privacy regulations in order to have parents opt in to sharing a plethora of data, including with advertising.
During the pandemic, when schools were compelled to adapt to virtual learning, the use of educational technology skyrocketed. The new guidelines also apply to permission granted by schools to ed tech businesses.
The policy announcement further underlines that educational technology businesses cannot keep children’s data permanently.
The FTC cited a March deal with Weight Watchers in which the firm was fined $1.5 million for breaching children’s privacy rules. As part of the agreement, Weight Watchers’ kid’s app Kurbo is prohibited from storing data from users under the age of 13 for more than a year. The policy paper also states that ed tech companies must have security processes in place to secure children’s data.
To read our blog on “FTC Finds Cambridge Analytica Deceived Facebook Users,” click here.
