Data Card
FTC issues COPPA policy statement to encourage privacy-bounded age verification
The U.S. FTC issued a COPPA policy statement saying it will not bring enforcement actions in certain cases where general-audience and mixed-audience services use age verification solely to determine age and follow strict data-handling conditions.
2026-02-27CC-BY-4.0policyprivacyregulation
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Key Facts
- The FTC said age-verification data collected under this policy must be used only to determine age, retained only as long as necessary, and then deleted promptly.
- Operators must provide clear notice, apply reasonable security safeguards, and use methods or vendors likely to provide reasonably accurate age results.
- The policy statement remains in effect until the FTC finalizes related COPPA rule amendments or withdraws the statement.
Card Text
The statement gives age-assurance providers and online services a clearer federal compliance path, but only where age checks are tightly scoped and separated from broader profiling or reuse.