Wondering how you can protect your children from various unfiltered online data? Well, the Children Online Privacy Protection Act can guide you through. Like other acts against different cybercrimes, this one’s also an act to release parents' stress against internet use by children.

The COPPA applies to getting data from or showing data to children under 13 years of age. When there are so many sites and content on the internet, it’s very important to know the limitations for your young children to protect them. 

Don’t know anything about COPPA? This article will explain every bit to help you out. 

What Is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act?

In 1998, Congress enacted the COPPA to protect children's online privacy. Whenever a website collects or discloses personal information from children under 13, they must obtain their parent's consent. 

COPPA also requires websites to provide parents with information about how their child's information is collected and used. 

What’s Covered Under COPPA?

You must have noticed a particular type of ad after searching for a thing on the internet. To stop this from happening with children, it’s important to protect their privacy. Parents should be given all rights to protect and limit the data usage by their children.

Here are some things covered under COPPA:

1 - Data collection, use, and sharing from children on websites must be outlined in a privacy policy.

2 - Children's personal information must be collected, used, or disclosed with their parent's consent.

3 - Parents must be allowed to refuse to allow their children's personal information to be collected by websites. 

4 - Parents should be able to control the websites their children access and use. This way, parents can ban children's access to adult or unwanted sites whose data isn’t good for children.

5 - Parents should know about the third parties who can access their children's data. Additionally, with control over disallowing the particular third parties with whom parents are not comfortable to share data. 

6 - To protect the security and confidentiality of the personal information collected from children, website operators must take reasonable measures. 

Is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act effective?

The law protects children's online privacy by requiring websites to follow strict guidelines to protect children's privacy online. Parents must consent before companies collect or share information about their children, and they must limit how the data they collect can be used. Companies that violate COPPA can face costly fines.

Some argue that COPPA needs to be more effective as it does not protect children from data collection by companies outside the US and does not cover the use of facial recognition technology.

How To Protect Your Children’s Data?

Relying on COPPA isn’t enough; you must take personal measures to protect your child’s safety fully. Here are some steps that will help you with this:

• Teach your children about online safety: Ensure your children know the risks of going online and how to stay safe. Make them aware of potential risks and teach them how to protect themselves online. 

• Monitor their online activity: Monitor what your children are doing online and with whom they communicate. 

• Set ground rules for online behaviour: Set rules for online behaviour, such as not sharing personal information, not using bad language, not downloading unknown files, and not visiting websites or downloading apps that are inappropriate for their age. 

• Use parental control software: Install parental control software to monitor, filter, and block access to certain websites, apps, and content. 

• Use secure passwords: Use secure passwords for your family's online accounts and encourage your children to do the same. 

•  Check privacy settings: Regularly check and adjust the privacy settings of your children's websites and apps. 

• Limit the amount of time spent online: Set limits on how much your children can spend online to keep them from spending too much time online, which can be detrimental to their physical and mental health. 

• Know your children’s online friends: Get to know them and make sure they are who they say they are. 

Final Words

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was created to help protect the privacy of children under the age of 13 who use the internet. This act requires websites and online services that collect personal information from children to obtain parental consent before doing so.

If you are a parent with young children, it is important to be aware of COPPA and how it can affect their online privacy. PrivacyHawk offers a variety of tools and resources to help parents keep their children safe online.

PrivacyHawk’s monitoring system will help you monitor which websites collect children's personal information. With PrivacyHawk, you can rest assured knowing that your child’s online privacy is being protected.