Children's Privacy in the Digital World

 In this special edition of the Reminger Report Podcast on Emerging Technologies, host Zachary Pyers is joined by Chloe Schelhaas, a law clerk at Reminger Co., LPA, to discuss the growing concerns around children’s privacy in the digital world. Chloe provides an in-depth look at the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), explaining how it aims to safeguard children’s personal information online, especially on platforms like TikTok. 

Transcript

REMINGER REPORT PODCAST ON EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Children’s Online Privacy - TikTok

ZBP      Zachary B. Pyers, Esq.
CS         Chloe Schelhaas

 | ZBP | Welcome to the special addition of the Reminger Report Podcast on Emerging Technologies. I am here today with one of the law clerks from our Columbus office, Chloe Schelhaas, who will be joining us as an Attorney after she passes the bar and if you could Chloe, just take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners.
| CS | Hi Zach, thanks for having me on the podcast, my name is Chloe Schelhaas. I am currently a 3L at the Ohio State Mortiz College of Law. I have been working at Reminger since May, and I look forward to joining after the bar.
| ZBP | Well, we are certainly looking forward to having you join us as well. And today I’m excited to be talking about TikTok, but I know and there’s a lot of stuff that has been in the news about TikTok recently and over the last several months, but today we’re talking about something big. Frankly, I have not seen on the news all that much before, so it kind of brought this subject to my attention, which is children’s online privacy. So, if you could, give me just a quick update or a kind of a quick overview I guess I would say about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection act or COPPA.
| CS | Yeah, so congress enacted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA in 1998. Essentially it is put in place to protect the safety and privacy of children online. It prohibits certain operators of internet websites and services, such as TikTok and other platforms from the unauthorized use or collection of information for children that are under the age of 13 years old and on August 2nd, 2024, the FDC and the Justice Department filed suit against TikTok and its parent company Bite Dance for violating children’s privacy laws. Essentially TikTok was collecting data from children that were under the age of 13 and permitting them to create accounts and share content without parental consent. There’s a lot of specific protections regarding the age and making sure that children’s accounts are verified and TikTok was not honoring the requests of parents who wanted their children’s accounts deleted and they were using the data improperly.
| ZBP | And of all the topics we could have talked about, or you could have talked about, how did you end up or land on this specific topic?
| CS | I landed on this topic because social media has just continued to grow. More children and teenagers have access to the internet and their creating social media accounts, I think the concern regarding data collection has also grown. Just privacy in general has grown that concern. Especially when you think about kids’ usage of social media and for COPPA there has been changes and there have been a lot of notable COPPA enforcement in the recent years. For example, in 2019 Google and YouTube had issues with COPPA and the FDC ended up fining them and they ended up settling for $170 million dollars. Also, Epic Games, which many people know as Fortnite got hit with one of the largest financial penalties under COPPA and they ended up paying a $275 million dollar penalty for those COPPA violations.
| ZBP | Those are very large penalties thinking in terms of, you know, overall sources of revenue. I mean I know it’s not necessarily huge for some of those larger entities but when you hear those numbers, like, as you just stated, those do sound like very, very large penalties.
| CS | Absolutely and that’s really raised concern even of lawmakers and Senators. There have been in 2024, there had been bills that were being considered to strengthen COPPA and to have additional protections for children online. The Senate had approved KOSA which was the Kid Online Safety Act and there had been a lot of bipartisan support for establishing a duty of care that social media companies would be required to have when it comes to minors that use their products, specifically focusing on the design of the platforms and regulations of these companies. Many of these companies would have to have a higher maximum age that would be covered under the law and there would be updates to personal information. Many of these companies collect a variety of data whether it’s voice prints, facial imagery and these data – this data just needs further protection especially when it comes to children.
| ZBP | Yeah, if you could, explain to us the significance of this particular lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company Bite Dance.
| CS | Absolutely. TikTok has had issues regarding the year protections with children, this has gone on the news because the DOJ had claimed that TikTok has just continued to collect and retain data. There’s a kids mode version of TikTok I believe or something that parents can do with parental controls but the app makes it so easy for people to lie about their age, they’re able to just create an age unknown account or state that they are older than what they are and so there’s just been too many ways for people to circumvent the data collection concerns.
| ZBP | Now, obviously, you know were just coming out of one presidential administration, we’re heading into a different presidential administration, obviously the make up of Congress, the Senate and the House are changing, as we look forward as it relates, you know, child’s privacy, can you kind of share what your opinions are on the enforcement of COPPA, this lawsuit or kind of any of the other information about the legal changes and guidelines in protection as it relates to children’s access to social media?
| CS | Yeah, so I think going forward we’re going to continue to see litigation and further advocacy for protections for children in online spaces. I know you mentioned the change of administration with Lina Khan going out and Andrew Ferguson going in, I think the FDC and then the DOJ together will have still further concern and further movement towards protecting children. I think that there will be further carry out – furtherance of lawsuits, I mean this one in particular although there has been the TikTok ban and what not. This lawsuit itself, the timing, a lot of the dispositive motions and discovery is slated for 2026, the Hearing on the dispositive motions is in 2027, so we will just continue to hear about this in the news and I think we’ll see parents get concerned, advocacy groups and I think bipartisan bills come forward just for strengthening the protections of children in online spaces against companies that are getting away with a lack of regulations for their users.
| ZBP | Well, Chloe, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today and for explaining COPPA which frankly I wasn’t all that too familiar with before reading your paper and kind of prepping for this interview, so I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today.
| CS | Thank you for having me on.