WASHINGTON—Following the Senate's unanimous passage of the Children and Teen's Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) and the House Energy and Commerce Committee's advancement of the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, issued the following statements from Senior Policy Manager Ash Johnson.
On the Senate’s passage of COPPA 2.0:
Congress is right to strengthen online privacy protections for teens, but the Senate version of COPPA 2.0 still needs changes.
Replacing COPPA’s long-standing “actual knowledge” standard would force companies to overhaul existing compliance programs and burden firms that already comply in good faith. Heavily restricting personalized advertising targets how ads are delivered rather than what they say, undermining the revenue that supports free services for young users without addressing the advertising content itself. By creating a regulatory floor—not a ceiling—the bill invites a costly patchwork of stricter state laws.
Lawmakers should proceed carefully to avoid creating an Internet where services designed for kids and teens shut down due to compliance costs and lost ad revenue. COPPA 2.0’s approach would make youth less safe, potentially pushing them toward less age-appropriate online spaces.
On the advancement of the KIDS Act:
The KIDS Act's advancement is a step backward for children’s online safety. It is the latest Frankenstein’s monster of good and bad children’s online safety proposals. After making drastic improvements to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), the committee undermined its own progress by combining this legislation with other bills that take more controversial and restrictive approaches toward children’s online safety, including age verification measures and a blanket ban on ephemeral messaging to kids.
Congress should remove the controversial and overly restrictive measures from the KIDS Act, leaving only KOSA's meaningful protections intact. KOSA’s requirements that online platforms offer easy-to-use parental controls and enact reasonable measures to address specific harms to children would go a long way toward effectively making the Internet a safer place for children.
Contact: Nicole Hinojosa, [email protected]
