Child Online Privacy Protections Cut From Congress’ Spending Bill Despite Last-Minute Push

Topline

A pair of bills designed to strengthen online protections for children was left out of a fiscal year 2023 spending plan Congress is aiming to pass this week, despite heightened concerns about online privacy and an advocacy campaign by parents whose children’s deaths have been tied to Internet activity.

Key Facts

Lawmakers who sponsored the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act and the Kids Online Safety Act made a last-minute push to include both pieces of legislation in the fiscal year 2023 funding plan unveiled this week, but neither bill made the final text, which is expected to pass by the end of the week.

The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, sponsored by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), would prohibit Internet companies from collecting personal information on children under the age of 16 without prior consent, expanding a previous law that only restricted data collection up to age 12.

The Kids Online Safety Act, sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would require Internet applications and websites to set up safeguards restricting access to minors’ personal data, provide tools for parent monitoring and disclose how they use algorithms and targeting advertising, among other mechanisms.

While advocates for the bills blamed big tech lobbying for its failure, the legislation faced roadblocks in the House, where lawmakers were working on competing legislation that would strengthen privacy protections for all Americans, not just children.

Chief Critic

Parent advocacy group Fairplay, whose members testified before Congress in support of the legislation, called its omission from the 2023 budget bill “beyond heartbreaking” and warned “that preventable harms and tragedies will continue online,” in a statement. Blumenthal also said he was “deeply disappointed & frustrated” the bills were left out of the spending package,” he tweeted Tuesday, while blaming “Big Tech’s behemoth sway . . . armies of lobbyists and vast troves of smear money” for the bills’ failures.

Contra

The online safety bills have faced some pushback. A coalition of human rights and LGBTQ advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, signed a letter expressing concerns that the Kids Online Safety Act would allow for too much leeway in filtering content and raised the possibility that the legislation could be “weaponized” for political purposes “to censor online resources and information for queer and trans youth, people seeking reproductive healthcare, and more.”

News Peg

Congress is aiming to pass the fiscal year 2023 spending package, what’s known as the “omnibus” bill since it encompasses 12 pieces of legislation, by the end of the week in order to divert a government shutdown. The federal government is operating under a short-term stopgap measure that continues fiscal year 2022 appropriations through Friday at midnight. Lawmakers reached an agreement on a deal that will fund the government through the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends September 30, earlier this week, despite pushback from Republicans who wanted to pass another short-term measure that would extend past January 1, when the party takes control of the House and would have more leverage to negotiate a full-year spending package.

Key Background

The bills were nixed as concerns about the harmful effects of children’s Internet usage garner heightened attention. A group of parents whose children died from suicide in the wake of cyberbullying, overdoses on drugs purchased online or viral social media challenges (such as the blackout challenge that encouraged kids to choke themselves until they passed out) advocated for the passage of the two bills. President Joe Biden, who has not commented on their exclusion from the fiscal 2023 spending package, also urged Congress to “strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children (and) demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children” in his State of the Union speech this year.

What To Watch For

Whether the next Congress will take up the two bills in their current or modified forms. Both pieces of legislation advanced out of committee earlier this month and were placed on the legislative calendar, but were never presented for a vote, in part because the House is weighing competing legislation that would ramp up privacy protections for all Americans, not just children. That bill, the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, has bipartisan support in the House and moved out of committee in July, but outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) never put the legislation up for a vote, and expressed concerns that it could preempt laws in some states where restrictions were already tighter than what the federal law proposed, such as her home state of California.

Further Reading

TikTok’s Viral Challenges Keep Luring Young Kids to Their Deaths (Bloomberg)

Their kids’ deaths were tied to social media. They want Congress to act. (The Washington Post)

Senate’s year-end children’s privacy push faces uphill climb (The Washington Post)