Recap -- Examining Children's Privacy: New Technologies and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

The Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance held a hearing on protecting the privacy of children using the Internet.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said, "believe in my core that all children deserve special protections. Always. Period. I am enormously alarmed by the rise in criminal behavior targeting children online, from 'cyber-bullying' to adult predators. These frightening trends are directly connected to the fact that our children's sensitive, personal information is being increasingly exposed to the public. We have a responsibility to understand this rapidly changing digital landscape and to give parents the tools they need to protect their children's privacy."

Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) said, "The rise of new technology and social networking sites have significantly changed the Internet landscape over the last five years, and we need to make sure that our privacy laws are protecting children when they use these new tools. Today's hearing is a learning opportunity. We need to find out whether parents are still able to guard their children's personal information while allowing their kids to benefit from today's emerging technology."

Industry leaders cautioned federal lawmakers not to seek too drastic changes to long-standing rules that govern how websites safeguard children's privacy. While both Microsoft and Facebook argue that recent technological advances, including the rise of the mobile Web, necessitate new protections for children under 13, they signaled that aggressive changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) would harm innovation and perhaps even the law's original intent.

The Federal Trade Commission said that the rapid-fire pace of technological change, including an explosion in children's use of mobile devices and interactive gaming, has led the agency to accelerate its review of the COPPA Rule to make sure that it is still adequately protecting children's privacy. Although the FTC reviews most of its rules every 10 years, the COPPA Rule is being reviewed only five years after its last review, in 2005.

Kathryn Montgomery, an American University communications professor and also an architect of COPPA, said that the current regulations, enacted in 2000, need to be updated to reflect new developments in communications. "The commission must ensure that its regulations implementing COPPA include the full range of Internet-enabled or connected services, including the increasingly ever-present cell phones children use, along with Web-connected gaming devices and online, interactive video," she said.