Children's Right to Privacy

Children's On-line Protection Act of 1998 (COPA)

The COPA law of October 1998 prohibits certain commercial practices related to gathering and storing personal information about children under the age of 13 who use the Internet. The law makes it illegal to collect, use, or disclose personal information from children on-line, other than that allowed by the FTC regulations.

Personal information cited by this law includes:

• first and last name


• home or other physical address including street name and name of city or town


• e-mail address


• telephone number


• Social Security Number


• any other identifier that the FTC determines that allows someone to contact a specific individual physically or on-line or info concerning the child or the parents that a Web site or on-line service collects on-line from the child and combines with one of the identifiers already listed.

The COPA guidelines affect operators of Web sites, on-line services that direct Web sites or services to children, or on-line services that have knowledge that their sites/services are used to collect personal information from children. A service or site does not become one of these sites solely by linking to such a site "directed to children."

This law goes into effect when FTC adopts regulations. Some states have their own laws protecting children's privacy (e.g., California).