Key Polling Data:
Parents are looking for solutions that empower them to make decisions about how to protect their children online. Congress is considering several proposals, varied in their obligations and strategies to keep children safe. But few have aligned closely with the balanced, comprehensive approach that parents prefer, according to a PPI survey. H.R. 6333, the Parents Over Platforms Act (POPA), new bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) and Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), provides a welcome, more balanced approach.
Parents want protection that is more than just a one-time check. A PPI survey via Morning Consult, conducted earlier this fall, found that 70% of parents believe protections should be constantly keeping minors safe while using an app. While some proposed legislation, like the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), places the responsibility for age verification entirely on app stores with a one-time age check, just one in three parents thinks that this app store age verification strategy alone would keep kids safe online.
POPA balances responsibility for verification between app stores and app developers, in line with what parents want. It requires app stores to provide developers with an age signal, and then requires app developers to also require the right safety measures within apps. These developer obligations ensure continuous protection by requiring developers to appropriately restrict high-risk features.
Parents also care deeply about privacy. More than half of adults say they don’t trust apps with keeping kids’ info safe from hackers or other bad actors. It’s essential that data collected for age verification purposes isn’t used for other purposes, like targeted advertising. POPA includes protections on the use of age verification data and keeps information collection to a minimum. It also makes sure only apps that need the age signal are receiving the age signal.
Age verification methods should also be sustainable and thoughtful in order to avoid consent fatigue. When parents are asked for consent too many times, they can become overwhelmed, accepting terms habitually without considering the details of the request. As experiences with Europe’s privacy regulations have shown, poorly designed consent requests can undermine well-intentioned policy. While some age verification policies like the ASAA risk consent fatigue with high friction consent requests for every download, POPA takes a balanced approach that will keep parents engaged and kids protected by allowing parents to block categories of apps by age rating and enabling app developers to make sure they aren’t visible to minors at all. With 70% of parents worried that requiring parental app approval for every app download could restrict access to important info, selecting a policy that addresses these concerns is critical.
Parental sentiment is clear: we must take action to keep kids safe online. The Parents Over Platforms Act adopts a thoughtful, dual approach to verification, protects privacy, and avoids the pitfall of consent fatigue, while addressing the parental concerns reported in the PPI survey.
