[PDF] COPPA 20: The New Battle over Privacy, Age Verification, Online

5609_3547597_00052_54901.pdf Progress on Point

11 June 2009

ƒSUITE 500 ƒWASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

202-289-8928 ƒmail@pff.org ƒwww.pff.org

Age Verification, Online Safety & Free Speech

Executive Summary

fety, free speech and anonymity are on a collision course. The

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protections for both adolescents and adults. Furthermore, efforts continue at both the federal and state levels to institute new regulations, such as age verification mandates,

aimed at ensuring the safety of children online. There is an inherent tension between

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anonymously. These tensions are coming to a head with state-based efforts to expand COPPA, which

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oconsent framework to cover all

adolescents under 18. This seemingly small change would require age verification of not only adolescents and their parents, butvvnumbers of adults, thus raising grave First Amendment concerns. Such broad age verification mandates would, ironically, reduceonline privacy by requiring moreinformation to be collected from both adolescents and adults for age verification purposes, while doing little to

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