The Federal Trade Commission has proposed new rules to strengthen the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), further limiting the collection of children’s data, particularly those who seek to monetize the information through targeted advertising. FTC Chair Lina Khan says the proposed changes aim to prevent tech firms “from outsourcing their responsibilities to parents” when it comes to ensuring privacy for children’s data. The FTC says it has issued fines totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to Google’s YouTube, and to a lesser extent, ByteDance’s TikTok, for mishandling the data of children 13-years-old and younger.

The New York Times calls the proposed rules change “one of the most significant attempts by the U.S. government to strengthen consumer privacy in more than a decade.” Codified in 1998 and put into effect two years later, COPPA “restricts the online tracking of youngsters by services like social media apps, video game platforms, toy retailers and digital advertising networks,” NYT writes.

The last time the FTC revisited the rules, in 2019, it received upward of 175,000 public comments.

The proposed COPPA change also seeks to strengthen security requirements for digital services that collect children’s data and limit the duration companies can keep the information. Learning apps would be curtailed in collecting student data by consenting to stipulate the personal details be used for educational purposes, rather than commercial purposes.

“Kids must be able to play and learn online without being endlessly tracked by companies looking to hoard and monetize their personal data,” Khan said in a news announcement, calling the proposal “much-needed, especially in an era where online tools are essential for navigating daily life — and where firms are deploying increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil children.”

In its overview of proposed changes, The Drum reports “website operators would be required to get explicit consent from parents or guardians to disclose children’s data to third-parties, including third-party advertisers.”

“Website operators would also be disallowed from retaining youngsters’ data for any reasons beyond what’s strictly necessary for its specific purpose,” The Drum adds, noting that the data “wouldn’t be allowed to be retained indefinitely.”

The FTC in May took action against Meta Platforms for its collection and use of child data in violation of COPPA.

“Mere days later, the agency, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, announced that it would require Amazon to ‘overhaul its deletion practices and implement stringent privacy safeguards’ for violating COPPA by keeping children’s voice recordings indefinitely and blatantly disregarding parents’ data deletion requests,” according to The Drum.