On Sept. 2, Ireland's Data Protection Commission issued a landmark decision concerning the processing of children’s data in connection with the Instagram social media service. The decision, issued to Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Facebook Ireland Limited at the time of commencement of this inquiry) as the controller in question, found multiple infringements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation across legal basis, data minimization, transparency, data protection by design and default, c... Read More

Politico reports Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined Meta's Instagram 405 million euros for children's privacy violations under the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The fine, which is the second-largest GDPR penalty to ever be handed down, covers alleged violations stemming from Instagram's default account settings for children ages 13-17 that exposed email addresses and phone numbers associated with child-operated accounts. The investigation into the allegations began in October 20... Read More

While U.S. Congress is working to devise appropriate regulations for children's online privacy and content moderation, finalization is not on the immediate horizon. The inaction led the California Legislature to take matters into its own hands with final passage of Assembly Bill 2273, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. The bill, which awaits enactment by Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., after unanimously passing the State Assembly and Senate, is an online safety bill containing unique ... Read More

The New York Times reports a U.S. parent's Google account was suspended after they photographed infections in the private areas of their child for their health care provider to assess. Google's artificial intelligence system for detecting child sexual abuse imagery is used to track down and prevent sharing of such images, but accidental cases as this may be more common, Electronic Frontier Foundation technologist Jon Callas said. Last year, Google filed more than 600,000 reports of child abuse m... Read More

From exacerbating disparities in students through monitoring software to the harms teens are exposed to via dark patterns and algorithms, an increasingly complex batch of privacy problems revolve around the use of children’s data. The publication of “the Facebook Files,” collections of documents recording negative effects of the social media giant with a focus on youth, has only served to push this issue even more front and center. Senior Westin Research Fellow Müge Fazlioglu, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, t... Read More

Gizmodo reports U.S.-based security firm Disconnect released its "Do Not Track Kids" tool, which provides children's privacy education while simultaneously blocking online tracking of minors. The application can be installed on a device to immediately block the trackers from third-party apps and those sent to email inboxes while also blocking cryptocurrency miners. The app also encrypts and filters domain name systems to shield from telecommunications and internet service provider tracking. Disc... Read More