At the recent 2022 International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) conference in Washington D.C., Pixalate’s Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Ads Privacy and COPPA Compliance and former FTC enforcer, Allison Lefrak, presented Pixalate’s industry-first AI-based toolkit to identify apps that are likely child-directed and assess COPPA violation risk potential. Pixalate announced the release of its free COPPA Audience Assessment toolkit earlier this month.
Lefrak presented the problem the industry currently faces:
- Cited President Biden’s State of the Union address where he called on Congress to come together to pass legislation that addresses the issues of data collection and targeted advertising to children and young adults.
- Cited President Biden’s Unity Agenda which pointed to a study that estimated that online advertising firms hold approximately 72 million data points on the average 13 year old.
- “Publishers, advertisers and the ad tech industry face increased accountability to comply with privacy regulations – particularly children’s privacy.”
- Currently, programmatic advertising guidelines (OpenRTB) provide for an optional COPPA flag, and publishers may have misaligned incentives for revenue.
- App stores do not provide clarity surrounding child-directed apps as defined under COPPA, leaving practitioners to make their own judgment. They simply apply a content rating, which does not indicate whether the app is targeting children under 13.
- The sheer number of apps – over 5 million active between Apple and Google app stores – and the ever changing nature of those apps makes manual review processes insufficient.
Lefrak pointed out third-parties in the ad tech stack are subject to liability under COPPA’s requirements if they:
- Have (1) actual knowledge (2) that they are collecting personal information (3) directly from users of another website or online service directed at children.
Watch Lefrak’s full presentation above. If you want to learn more about how Pixalate’s tools can help you remain compliant with the latest privacy laws, schedule a demo.
