The FTC recently issued a COPPA enforcement policy statement regarding age verification. This statement adds to the children’s patchwork, which we recently wrote about. The statement also comes in advance of the April 22, 2026 compliance deadline for new COPPA Rules (which we wrote about last year).
Many websites fall into a category that under COPPA are considered “mixed audience.” These are sites that are appealing both to children and to older users. Many of these sites, according to the FTC’s statement, differentiate between users who are over as opposed to under 13. For the latter, they seek parental consent. To identify ages, they ask the user. There are, however, many technologies that would function better than self-reporting, the FTC notes. Sites have worried, though, that if they collect personal information from a child and share it with one of these age verification tools, they will be in violation of COPPA. In its statement, the FTC has indicated that it will not bring an enforcement action against these sites if they collect a child’s personal information only to verify age through one of these tools. Additional conditions must be met, discussed below. The FTC hopes this will encourage such sites to use these technologies.
Because many of the technologies and tools are from third parties, part of the conditions that must be met relate to use of the tools. These include, for example, taking steps to make sure that selected tool will give “reasonably accurate results,” that the third parties protect information, and that they use the information only for age verification. Additionally, there are internal steps to take advantage of the tools, not the least of which is otherwise complying with COPPA. For example, having appropriate parental notice and privacy policy disclosures. And, not keep the information longer than needed to verify age.
Putting it into Practice: This recent FTC statement suggests an alternative to having children self-reporting ages. This may be welcome news for mixed audience sites, but keep in mind the requirements the FTC has set out to take advantage of the potential reprieve.