Children's Personal Information

Personal data collected from, about, or pertaining to individuals below the legal age threshold for independent consent, which receives heightened protection under various privacy laws. This includes any information that identifies or could be used to identify a child—names, email addresses, phone numbers, photographs, video/audio recordings, geolocation, persistent identifiers like cookies when used to track children, and any other personal information. COPPA strictly regulates collection, use, and disclosure of children's personal information, requiring verifiable parental consent, clear privacy notices directed to parents, reasonable security measures, and data minimization. The heightened protection recognizes children's vulnerability, limited capacity to understand privacy implications, and deserving of special safeguards. Organizations must implement age-screening mechanisms, obtain appropriate parental consent, avoid conditioning participation on excessive data collection, and provide parents with access and deletion rights.