What this year’s COPPA update means for marketers, with privacy expert Debbie Reynolds

In January, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission finalized an updated version of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. And for as much attention as the update may have received, it probably merits more.

“It is a big deal. And I think because there’s been so much other activity in the news, people haven’t really paid attention to it,” Debbie Reynolds, a privacy expert and founder, CEO and chief data privacy officer at Debbie Reynolds Consulting, said on the latest Digiday Podcast episode.

The primary reason the COPPA update warrants attention is that it requires companies to receive verifiable parental consent before they can target ads to children. Clear cut as that requirement may appear to be, complying with it may be more complicated.

“Part of the confusion around privacy and the challenge companies will have with the update of COPPA is trying to figure out how to do things like how do you get verifiable quote-unquote parental consent beyond just having someone click a button to say, ’Hey, yeah, my parents said, “Yes,“’” said Reynolds.

Case in point: Will ad-supported streaming services start asking for parents to share copies of their driver’s licenses before their families can sit down to watch a show? And will parents be willing to do that?

“Anything that you give to these companies, they’re collecting, they’re storing. And then that brings up, do I trust this company enough to give them my ID, especially seeing the rash of data breaches,” Reynolds said. “It’s just going to be challenging going forward to see how companies really try to handle this issue.”