As laid out in our earlier blogpost, part of Ropes & Gray’s Data, Privacy & Cybersecurity Group’s “12 Days of Data” series, one thing to look out for in 2024 is an update from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on its Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA Rule) review. Well, we did not have to wait until 2024. On December 20, 2023, the FTC announced proposed changes to the COPPA Rule.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is the culmination of a process that began on July 25, 2019, when the FTC first solicited comments on the COPPA rule promulgated in 2013. The NPRM is seeking comments on the proposed changes as well as some related questions within 60 days of publication in the Federal Register (the deadline will likely fall in late February).Continue Reading FTC Proposes Amendments to the COPPA Rule as Part of Continued Attention to Children’s Privacy

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 shuttered daycare centers, shifted schools to virtual settings, and fueled the rapid growth of children’s applications and educational technology (“ed-tech”) to facilitate the shelter-in-place childcare and remote learning paradigms. The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), as well as numerous state laws protect children’s and students’ privacy when using these platforms. In 2021, increased scrutiny of the data collection practices of these platforms has followed their rapid deployment, as new variants led to renewed restrictions on in-person education and childcare. That scrutiny is likely to continue in the new year, as the use of such platforms persists, even as the pandemic subsides. In this post, we survey the developments during 2021 and assess the future of child and student privacy in 2022.
Continue Reading Trends in Child and Student Privacy