In both the Senate and the House, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has reintroduced a bill to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) and Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) have introduced the Do Not Track Kids Act. The bill would expand COPPA to cover information collected from children under 15; currently, COPPA covers only information collected from children under 13. It would also clarify what types of companies and internet-capable devices are subject to COPPA and enable parents and children to request removal of publicly-available personal information a child submits.
Barton and Markey first introduced the bill in the House in 2011, when Markey was serving as a representative from Massachusetts. They have since introduced versions of the bill in several sessions of Congress, but it has repeatedly died in committee.
