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.
- 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.