The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was passed in 1998 to protect children online, but the result has often been that children under 13 years of age are excluded from online services. Service providers are required to obtain
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was passed in 1998 to protect children online, but the result has often been that children under 13 years of age are excluded from online services. Service providers are required to obtain parental consent for children under 13 in order to collect their personal information, but it’s often not worth the effort, so many providers, such as Facebook, ban young children entirely.
As Adam Engst previously detailed in “How COPPA Teaches Children to Lie” (15 November 2011), this legislation and its unintended consequences have been a huge roadblock to computing in education, forcing children and parents to falsify age data to access useful services. Unfortunately, schools can’t get away with breaking the law so blatantly, so Apple services such as iTunes U and iCloud have been off-limits to elementary and middle-school classes where children are under 13, despite heavy adoption of the iPad for 