United States HR 7890: Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act

Bill Text

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118TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION H. R. 7890
To amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 to strengthen
protections relating to the online collection, use, and disclosure of per-
sonal information of children and teens, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL 9, 2024
Mr. WALBERG (for himself, Ms. CASTOR of Florida, Mr. BUCSHON, Ms.
ESHOO, Mr. CARTER of Georgia, Mr. MOULTON, Mr. DUNN of Florida,
and Mr. AUCHINCLOSS) introduced the following bill; which was referred
to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
A BILL
To amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of
1998 to strengthen protections relating to the online
collection, use, and disclosure of personal information
of children and teens, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 3
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 4
‘‘Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act’’. 5
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 6
this Act is as follows: 7
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Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Online collection, use, disclosure, and deletion of personal information
of children and teens.
Sec. 3. Study and reports of mobile and online application oversight and en-
forcement.
Sec. 4. Severability.
SEC. 2. ONLINE COLLECTION, USE, DISCLOSURE, AND DE-1
LETION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION OF 2
CHILDREN AND TEENS. 3
(a) DEFINITIONS.—Section 1302 of the Children’s 4
Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (15 U.S.C. 6501) 5
is amended— 6
(1) by amending paragraph (2) to read as fol-7
lows: 8
‘‘(2) OPERATOR.—The term ‘operator’— 9
‘‘(A) means any person— 10
‘‘(i) who, for commercial purposes, in 11
interstate or foreign commerce operates or 12
provides a website on the internet, an on-13
line service, an online application, or a mo-14
bile application; and 15
‘‘(ii) who— 16
‘‘(I) collects or maintains, either 17
directly or through a service provider, 18
personal information from or about 19
the users of that website, service, or 20
application; 21
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‘‘(II) allows another person to 1
collect personal information directly 2
from users of that website, service, or 3
application (in which case, the oper-4
ator is deemed to have collected the 5
information); or 6
‘‘(III) allows users of that 7
website, service, or application to pub-8
licly disclose personal information (in 9
which case, the operator is deemed to 10
have collected the information); and 11
‘‘(B) does not include any nonprofit entity 12
that would otherwise be exempt from coverage 13
under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commis-14
sion Act (15 U.S.C. 45).’’; 15
(2) in paragraph (4)— 16
(A) by amending subparagraph (A) to read 17
as follows: 18
‘‘(A) the release of personal information 19
collected from a child or teen by an operator for 20
any purpose, except where the personal infor-21
mation is provided to a person other than an 22
operator who— 23
‘‘(i) provides support for the internal 24
operations of the website, online service, 25
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online application, or mobile application of 1
the operator, excluding any activity relat-2
ing to individual-specific advertising to 3
children or teens; and 4
‘‘(ii) does not disclose or use that per-5
sonal information for any other purpose; 6
and’’; and 7
(B) in subparagraph (B)— 8
(i) by inserting ‘‘or teen’’ after 9
‘‘child’’ each place the term appears; 10
(ii) by striking ‘‘website or online 11
service’’ and inserting ‘‘website, online 12
service, online application, or mobile appli-13
cation’’; and 14
(iii) by striking ‘‘actual knowledge’’ 15
and inserting ‘‘actual knowledge or knowl-16
edge fairly implied on the basis of objective 17
circumstances’’; 18
(3) by striking paragraph (8) and inserting the 19
following: 20
‘‘(8) PERSONAL INFORMATION.— 21
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘personal in-22
formation’ means individually identifiable infor-23
mation about an individual collected online, in-24
cluding— 25
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‘‘(i) a first and last name; 1
‘‘(ii) a home or other physical address 2
including street name and name of a city 3
or town; 4
‘‘(iii) an e-mail address; 5
‘‘(iv) a telephone number; 6
‘‘(v) a Social Security number; 7
‘‘(vi) any other identifier that the 8
Commission determines permits the phys-9
ical or online contacting of a specific ind