A couple months ago, I wrote a couple posts about COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). Last week, USA Today reported that Google is reworking its products to release child appropriate versions. This follows on the heels of the FTC fining Yelp $450,000 for not screening users by age. The cynic in me thinks that Google must find ways to appeal to the next generation of users to avoid becoming another Blackberry smeared on the electronic superhighway. The optimist in me doesn't care why Google went to all the trouble of modifying its products but is really excited that someone is finally leading the way on children's privacy efforts and privacy efforts in general. Besides, Google can afford to devote significant resources to such an endeavor. What about the other 99% of software developers?
My standard COPPA advice for software developers is to "run as quickly and as far away from children as you can with your app and do your best to avoid having any children under 13 ever use it because COPPA is a minefield." By the way, I still think this is great advice.
I heave a sigh of relief when apps are designed to assist with Medicare sign up or calculates mandatory 401k withdrawals.
Occasionally though, people do develop apps that kids might actually play or use. I then only heave another sigh of relief when clients also have an unlimited budget set aside for custom privacy policies, custom parental rights code development and staff to police users and monitor privacy practices. [audience laughs]
When clients don't have these nearly infinite financial resource, I lose sleep at night trying to find an affordable way to comply with COPPA's parental verification and disclosure requirements. Fortunately, solutions beyond infinite financial reserves are on the horizon. Last week I met an entrepreneur who is taking this challenge head on and giving his solution away for free to most developers and all parents. Roy Smith told me he founded AgeCheq essentially as a user-friendly way for companies to outsource the difficult disclosures and verifications required by COPPA (and for good Internet citizenship). I was intrigued by Roy's vision of how to make privacy controls manageable, essentially by creating a single universal platform where parents can verify their identification a single time and have a uniform dashboard that monitors their children's use of mobile devices, apps, and websites. Check it out!
I've only just learned about this service, but it seems very promising indeed!
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