Washington (May 3, 2023) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the HELP Committee, today announced the reintroduction of the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), legislation to update online data privacy rules for the 21st century to ensure children and teenagers are protected online. 

Children and teens in the United States are facing a youth mental health crisis fueled, in part, by Big Tech. The American Academy of Pediatrics has declared a national emergency for children’s mental health; recently, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that one in ten high school girls contemplated suicide in the past year; and among LGBTQ+ youth, that number was more than one in five. Big Tech knowingly contributes to this devastating trend. Industry leaders’ own internal research shows that when young people feel bad about themselves, social media platforms make them feel worse. In 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on social media platforms to do more to reverse this disturbing decline in young people’s mental health.

Senators Markey and Cassidy’s COPPA 2.0 would stop the data practices fueling today’s youth mental health crisis. In 1998, Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which instituted basic privacy protections, including notice and parental consent requirements that protect users under 13 years old. While COPPA took major steps towards safeguarding children’s personal information on the internet, the law is overdue for an update in light of major changes in the online landscape. Over 90 percent of parents agree that existing children’s privacy rules should be extended to teenagers, and the need for a comprehensive set of protections to safeguard children and teen’s privacy online has become significantly more urgent as young people’s mental health declines. Kids lack key cognitive capabilities to safely spend time online, yet during the COVID-19 pandemic, children’s use of the internet doubled, and over one in four teens report using social media “almost constantly.” As countries around the world address the dramatic increase in children and teens’ time online by enacting heightened privacy protections for young people, Congress must also act.

“Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental health crisis in this country by exploiting kids and teens just so they can make more money. It’s Congress’s job to stand up for young people and put an end to this,” said Senator Markey. “Congress must pass COPPA 2.0 to put immediate safeguards in place that prevent Big Tech from tracking, traumatizing, and targeting young people every second, every minute, and every hour of the day. I am proud of the protections guaranteed by my 1998 law, COPPA, but the fact remains that today’s online guardrails were written before the invention of the iPhone. The law has to evolve to meet the reality of today’s digital landscape. We won’t address the threats to young people if we don’t stop the data practices at the root of the problem. Privacy protections are worth fighting for, and I thank Senator Cassidy for his continued partnership as we build on the momentum we created last year and push to enact this legislation in the 118th Congress.”

“Children and teenagers are going to use the internet. Parents should be confident their children are safe when doing so,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This bill prohibits internet companies from collecting personal information on young teenagers without consent.”

Data shows that platforms’ data practices are a key contributor to the mental health crisis—there is a straight line from the glaring lack of privacy protections for children and teens to the decline in young people’s well-being. Kids and teens’ data is the raw material Big Tech uses to power algorithms that amplify toxic content, including posts promoting eating disorders and self-harm, which damage children and teens. Experts note that, by amassing troves of data about children and teens, powerful online platforms are able employ sophisticated amplification and recommendation systems that promote harmful content to young users and keep them glued to their screens. Personal information about young people is the input that apps and websites use to grab young people’s attention so that the platforms can increase advertising revenue at the expense of minors’ wellbeing. 

A copy of the legislation can be found HERE.

Specifically, COPPA 2.0 would:

“Common Sense Media strongly supports the reintroduction of this bi-partisan bill to strengthen the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and we commend Senators Markey and Cassidy for their work on behalf of kids and families. Strengthening data privacy protections is the first step toward building a safer online world for kids and teens. This new and improved version of COPPA 2.0 expands on previous iterations by covering teens' data until their 17th birthday and banning targeted ads to all covered minors, making the bill even stronger than before. The federal COPPA is now a 25-year-old law that has long been in need of an update to better protect kids and teens on the internet as it looks today, and that is what COPPA 2.0 will do. We urge Congress to act right away to take up this bill and other legislation to establish guardrails on tech to reduce online harms to kids and teens,” said Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media.  

 

‘“The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, introduced by Senators Markey and Cassidy, will provide urgently needed online safeguards for children and teens. By banning targeted ads to young people under 16, the endless streams of data collected by online companies to profile and track them will be significantly reduced. The ability of digital marketers and platforms to manipulate, discriminate, and exploit children and teens will be curtailed. COPPA 2.0 will also extend the original COPPA law protections for youth from 12 to 16 years of age. The proposed law provides the ability to delete children’s and teen’s data with a click of an “eraser button.”  By strengthening the FTC by the creation of a new “Youth Marketing and Privacy Division,” COPPA 2.0 will ensure young peoples’ privacy rights are enforced,”’ said Katharina Kopp, Deputy Director of Center for Digital Democracy.

“The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act is a critical step towards addressing the youth mental health crisis and creating the internet that young people deserve,” said Josh Golin, Executive Director at Fairplay. “By granting teens privacy protections for the first time and banning targeted ads, the bill will disrupt the toxic business model in which online platforms use any means necessary to capture young people's attention and monetize their data. We commend Senators Markey and Cassidy for introducing this landmark legislation and urge Congress to act quickly to put children’s needs ahead of commercial interests.”

Senator Markey, author of the landmark Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, is a longtime champion of children’s online protections. Amid calls to ban TikTok in March 2023, Senator Markey delivered remarks on the Senate floor calling for immediate regulation of Big Tech to protect the privacy of children and teens online. In January 2023, Senator Markey led bipartisan colleagues in celebrating a passage of their Children and Media Research Advancement (CAMRA) Act that they secured into the Fiscal Year 2023 omnibus package, which would fund research about technology and media’s effects on infants, children and adolescents in core areas of cognitive, physical and socio-emotional development. He also authored the Children’s Television Act that established critical media and advertising rules to protect children’s wellbeing.

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