Global Courant 2023-05-03 23:12:50
US regulators say Facebook misled parents and failed to protect children’s privacy using the Messenger Kids app, including misrepresenting access to private user data it provided to app developers.
As a result, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday proposed sweeping changes to a 2020 privacy order with Facebook — now called Meta — that would prohibit profiting from data it collects about users under the age of 18. reality products. The FTC said the company has not fully complied with the 2020 order.
Meta would also be subject to other restrictions, including regarding the use of facial recognition technology, and would be required to provide additional privacy protections to its users.
“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk and Facebook must answer for its failures.”
‘Political Stunt’
Meta called the announcement a “political stunt”.
“Despite three years of continued involvement with the FTC surrounding our agreement, they provided no opportunity to discuss this new, totally unprecedented theory. Let’s be clear about what the FTC is trying to do: usurp Congressional authority to set industry-wide standards. and pick one US company instead, while Chinese companies, such as TikTok, can operate on US soil without restrictions,” Meta said in a prepared statement.
“We have expended tremendous resources building and implementing an industry-leading privacy program under the terms of our FTC agreement. We will fight this action vigorously and expect to prevail.”
Experts involved in child development
Facebook launched Messenger Kids in 2017 and presented it as a way for kids to chat with family members and friends who have been approved by their parents. The app does not give children separate Facebook or Messenger accounts. Rather, it works as an extension of a parent’s account, and parents are given controls such as the ability to decide who their children can chat with.
At the time, Facebook said Messenger Kids wouldn’t serve ads or collect data for marketing, though it would collect some data it said it needed to run the service.
But child development experts expressed immediate concerns.
In early 2018, a group of 100 experts, advocates and parenting organizations challenged Facebook’s claims that the app filled a child’s need for a messaging service. The group included non-profit organizations, psychiatrists, pediatricians, educators and the children’s music singer Raffi Cavoukian.
“Messenger Kids doesn’t answer a need — it creates one,” the letter said. “It especially appeals to kids who wouldn’t otherwise have social media accounts of their own.”
Another passage criticized Facebook for “targeting younger kids with a new product.”
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‘Gaps’ and ‘weaknesses’ in privacy controls
At the time, Facebook said in response to the letter that the app “helps parents and children chat in a safer way”, emphasizing that parents are “always in control” of their children’s activities.
The FTC now says that has not been the case. The 2020 privacy order, which required Facebook to pay a $5 billion fine, required an independent reviewer to evaluate the company’s privacy practices. The FTC said the reviewer “identified several gaps and weaknesses in Facebook’s privacy program.”
The FTC also said that from late 2017 to 2019, Facebook “misrepresented that parents could control who their children communicated with through the Messenger Kids product.”
“Despite the company’s promises that children using Messenger Kids would be able to communicate only with contacts approved by their parents, in certain circumstances children could communicate with unapproved contacts in group text chats and group video calls,” the FTC said.
As part of the proposed changes to the FTC’s 2020 order, Meta would also be required to pause the launch of new products and services without “written confirmation from the reviewer that its privacy program is in full compliance” with the order.
