Potential Child Online Safety Bill

Jtalk4456 · September 16, 2022

Summary

California Governor signs into law a bill aimed at better child safety online

Quotes

Quote

The bill — jointly authored by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, a Democrat, and Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, a Republican — prohibits social media companies from using children’s personal information. It also bars collection, sale or retention of children’s geolocation and leading or encouraging children to provide personal information.

From here on I will ignore the actual news article and will focus on quoting the actual language of the bill

Quote

This bill would enact the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which, commencing July 1, 2024, would, among other things, require a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements, including a requirement to configure all default privacy settings offered by the online service, product, or feature to the settings that offer a high level of privacy, unless the business can demonstrate a compelling reason that a different setting is in the best interests of children, and to provide privacy information, terms of service, policies, and community standards concisely, prominently, and using clear language suited to the age of children likely to access that online service, product, or feature. The bill would require a business, before any new online services, products, or features are offered to the public, to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment, as defined, for any online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children and maintain documentation of this assessment as long as the online service, product, or feature is likely to be accessed by children. The bill would require a business to make a Data Protection Impact Assessment available, within 5 business days, to the Attorney General pursuant to a written request and would exempt a Data Protection Impact Assessment from public disclosure, as prescribed. The bill would prohibit a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children from taking proscribed action, including, if the end user is a child, using personal information for any reason other than a reason for which the personal information was collected, unless the business can demonstrate a compelling reason that use of the personal information is in the best interests of children.
This bill would create the California Children’s Data Protection Working Group to deliver a report to the Legislature regarding best practices for the implementation of these provisions, as specified. The bill would require the members of the working group to have certain expertise, including in the areas of children’s data privacy and children’s rights. The bill would require the working group to take input from a broad range of stakeholders, including from academia, consumer advocacy groups, and small, medium, and large businesses affected by data privacy policies, and make prescribed recommendations on best practices, including identifying online services, products, or features likely to be accessed by children.

My thoughts

First, Buffy Wicks made me chuckle. Second, it certainly has good intentions. But I'm not well enough versed in this to know if this will have the intended impact or if this is another situation with politicians trying to do something without understanding how it works

Sources

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-gov-gavin-newsom-signs-law-intended-to-protect-children-on-social-media/ar-AA11SxJJ

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2273

Hairless Monkey Boy · September 16, 2022

28 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

But I'm not well enough versed in this to know if this will have the intended impact or if this is another situation with politicians trying to do something without understanding how it works

Reading through the first part of your second quote, I had similar concerns. For instance:

What does this mean?

Quote

likely to be accessed by children

Who defines what uses are in the "best interest" of children? Courts?

28 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

demonstrate a compelling reason that use of the personal information is in the best interests of children.

Those questions are more or less answered, however, by the second paragraph. The politicians seem to be aware of their own limitations, and so have created a mechanism by which these difficult questions can be answered by a group of experts who are themselves accountable to a "broad range of stakeholders". That seems to me like the best way to arrive at good answers to these complicated issues.

This seems pretty awesome. I do wonder what enforcement mechanisms exist, and whether they will be strong enough to deter businesses from skirting the rules and using the highly profitable personal information of children with the expectation that they will just pay some relatively small fine if caught.

Spoiler