Eighteen organizations filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission accusing Facebook of violating the Privacy Act. protection of Children's Online Privacy Act (COPPA).
The groups signing the complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argue that the application Messenger Kids του Facebook συλλέγει παράνομα τα προσωπικά στοιχεία των παιδιών, ακόμη και όταν δεν δίνεται η γονική συναίνεση.
Furthermore, the letter says that Facebook has not added a COPPA-compliant mechanism to seek verifiable parental consent before collecting and managing information about users under 13 years old.
The Messenger Kids is a social network designed by Facebook for little ones children between the ages of 6 and 12 who cannot create their own Facebook accounts or use their parent's social network until they are 13 years old.
Agencies signing the complaint also say that such a mechanism should guarantee that the user who gives consent to the data collection is the parent of the child using the Messenger Kids account, which is allegedly not valid in this point.
"Messenger Kids allows anyone with a Facebook account who claims to be an adult to create and verify a Messenger Kids account," said the letter from the CCFC (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood). ads) to the FTC.
That is, although Messenger Kids requires the parent's Facebook account to create a Messenger Kids account and add contacts, according to CCFC tests, this is easily bypassed if you simply create a new Facebook account.
Furthermore, the complaint to the FTC states that Facebok Messenger Kids Privacy Policy was designed to be unclear and incomplete and not to follow COPPA's requirements.