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The primary goal of COPPA is to place parents in control over what information is collected from their young children online. The Rule was designed to protect children under age 13, while accounting for the dynamic nature of the Internet. The Rule applies to operators of commercial websites and online services (including mobile apps and IoT devices, such as smart toys) directed to children under 13 that collect, use, or disclose personal information from children, or on whose behalf such information is collected or maintained (such as when personal information is collected by an ad network to serve targeted advertising). The Rule also applies to operators of general audience websites or online services with actual knowledge that they are collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13, and to websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information directly from users of another website or online service directed to children. Operators covered by the Rule must:

The Rule applies to operators of commercial websites and online services (including mobile apps and IoT devices) directed to children under 13 that collect, use, or disclose personal information from children. It also applies to operators of general audience websites or online services with actual knowledge that they are collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13. The Rule also applies to websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information directly from users of another website or online service directed to children.

If you want to help law enforcement potentially spot a pattern of violations requiring law enforcement action, you may report that to the FTC online. You also may call our toll free telephone number at (877) FTC-HELP to report to a live operator. Please note that the FTC does not resolve individual consumer disputes. If you have a complaint about someone violating the COPPA Rule and need individual help, you should contact your State Attorney General.

Although COPPA does not apply to teenagers, the FTC is concerned about teen privacy and does believe that strong, more flexible, protections may be appropriate for this age group. See FTC Report: Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations for Businesses and Policymakers (Mar. 2012), at 29, 60. The FTC also has issued a number of guidance documents for teens and their parents. These educational materials are available at www.OnguardOnline.gov.

Yes. COPPA gives states and certain federal agencies authority to enforce compliance with respect to entities over which they have jurisdiction. For example, New York has brought several COPPA enforcement actions. See -release/2019/ag-james-google-and-youtube-pay-record-figure-illegally-tracking-and-collecting (Sept. 2019); -release/2018/ag-underwood-announces-record-coppa-settlement-oath-formerly-aol-violating (Dec. 2018); -release/2016/ag-schneiderman-announces-results-operation-child-tracker-ending-illegal-online (Sept. 2016). In addition, some federal agencies, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Department of Transportation, are responsible for handling COPPA compliance for the specific industries they regulate.

As a matter of federal policy, all websites and online services operated by the Federal Government and contractors operating on behalf of federal agencies must comply with the standards set forth in COPPA. See OMB Guidance for Implementing the Privacy Provisions of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Sept. 2003).

It depends. COPPA applies to commercial websites and online services that are directed to children. If the content you post on the platform is directed to kids, and personal information is collected by you or on your behalf (such as a persistent identifier used to serve targeted advertising), you will be deemed an operator of an online service that needs to comply with COPPA. By the same token, if the platform has actual knowledge that your content is directed to children and is collecting personal information, it will also need to comply with COPPA.

The Rule sets out a number of factors for determining whether a website or online service is directed to children (See FAQ D.1). The FTC staff recognizes that the determination of whether content is child-directed will be clearer in some contexts than in others. We can, however, provide some general guidance.

In designing your age screen, you should ask age information in a neutral manner, making sure the data entry point allows users to enter their age accurately and does not default to an age 13 or over. An example of a neutral age screen would be a system that allows a user freely to enter the month and year of birth. Avoid encouraging children to falsify age information by, for example, stating that certain features will not be available to users under age 13. In addition, consistent with long standing Commission advice, FTC staff recommends using technical means, such as a cookie, to prevent children from back-buttoning to enter a different age.

No. Requiring a child to answer a question he or she is unlikely to be able to answer, without more, is inadequate for determining the age of the user. There are many children under 13, for example, that can perform complex math problems, and some users over 13 that may have difficulty with those same complex problems. You may, however, use a math problem in addition to asking the age of the user, as described in FAQ D.7 above.

The Rule does not require you to inform third parties of the child-directed nature of your site or service, and doing so, without more, will not relieve you of your obligations under COPPA. Remember, you are responsible for the collection of personal information from your users, no matter who is doing the collection; therefore, you will need to do more than simply identify yourself to third parties. As a child-directed property, absent an exception under the Rule (see FAQ I.2 below), you must: (1) not collect or allow any other entity to collect personal information from your visitors; or (2) provide notice and obtain prior parental consent before collecting or allowing any entity to collect personal information from your visitors, as well as provide all of the other COPPA protections. In addition, Commission staff recommends that operators of child-directed websites or services signal their status to third parties and you may arrange with the third party collecting the personal information to provide adequate COPPA protections.

You should make informed decisions before you permit advertising to run on your sites and services. Depending on what advertising choices you make, you may be required to notify parents in your online privacy policies and in a direct notice, and obtain verifiable parental consent, before you permit advertising to occur. Remember that the Rule holds you liable for the collection of information that occurs on or through your sites and services, even if you yourself do not engage in such collection.

Remember, though, that you may still be faced with screenshots or other concrete information that gives you actual knowledge of the child-directed nature of the website despite a contradictory representation by the site. If, however, such information is inconclusive, you may ordinarily continue to rely on a specific affirmative representation made through a system that meets the criteria above.

An operator of a site directed to children does not need to notify parents or obtain their consent if it blurs the facial features of children in photos before posting them on its website. See 2013 Statement of Basis and Purpose, 78 Fed. Reg. 3972, 3982 n.123. The same goes for a site that has actual knowledge it has collected the photos from children. Before posting such photos, however, the operator must also remove any other personal information they contain, such as geolocation metadata, and ensure that it is not using or disclosing persistent identifiers collected from children in a manner that violates the Rule.

However, operators of websites or online services that are primarily directed to children (as defined by the Rule) must assume that the person uploading a photo is a child and they must design their systems either to: (1) give notice and obtain prior parental consent, or (2) remove any child images and metadata prior to posting.

COPPA is designed to notify parents and give them the choice to consent. Therefore, it is not sufficient to provide such notification and choice to the child user of a website or service. If the operator intends to collect geolocation information, the operator will be responsible for notifying parents and obtaining their consent prior to such collection.

COPPA does not require an operator to notify parents and obtain their consent before collecting the type of coarse geolocation services described. However, the operator should be quite certain that, in all instances, the geolocation information it collects is more general than that sufficient to identify street name and name of city or town.

Yes. COPPA does not require you to permit children under age 13 to participate in your general audience website or online service, and you may block children from participating if you so choose. By contrast, you may not block children from participating in a website or online service that is directed to children as defined by the Rule, even if the website or online service is also directed to users age 13 or older. See FAQ D.4 above.

If you choose to block children under 13 on your general audience site or service, you should take care to design your age screen in a manner that does not encourage children to falsify their ages to gain access to your site or service. Ask age information in a neutral manner at the point at which you invite visitors to provide personal information or to create a user ID.

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