She carried intellectual heft, though, that translated into political traction. Khan was an unorthodox choice for Biden, with no administrative experience or knowledge of the agency other than a stint for part of 2018 as legal adviser to one of the five commissioners. The agency’s mandate is broad - it polices competition and consumer protection as well as digital privacy - and under Khan it has been active on every front. That signaled a tough government stance toward giants Facebook (its parent now is called Meta Platforms), Google, Amazon and Apple, which already have been under pressure from Congress, state attorneys general and European regulators.Īt 33, Khan is the youngest chair in the 107-year history of the FTC, an independent agency with five commissioners and around 1,200 employees. President Joe Biden stunned official Washington about a year ago when he installed Khan, an energetic critic of Big Tech then teaching law, as head of the FTC. The company also paid a $1.5 million penalty. The children’s online privacy law prohibits companies from requiring that children provide more information than is needed, and restricts using students’ personal data for marketing purposes.Īmong a host of other enforcement actions, the FTC in March required WW International, formerly known as Weight Watchers, in a settlement to delete information illegally collected from children under 13 as well as algorithms developed by the company’s weight-loss app for children as young as eight. The so-called edtech companies have apps and websites that are used by hundreds of thousands of students in school districts around the country. Khan said Wednesday the FTC had heard complaints from parents who, when the pandemic struck in 2020, had to suddenly make that choice. The agency noted that it is against the law for companies to force parents “to surrender their childrens’ privacy rights in order to do schoolwork online or attend class remotely.” #DATA CREATOR KHAN CRACK#The FTC recently warned that it will crack down on education-technology companies if they illegally surveil children when they go online to learn. The recent tide of mass shootings has also highlighted the power of social media and its influence on young people. Those revelations were followed by senators grilling executives from YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat about what they’re doing to ensure young users’ safety in the wake of suicides and other harms to teens attributed by their parents to their usage of the platforms. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist, stunned Congress and the public last fall when she brought to light internal company research showing apparent serious harm to some teens from Facebook’s Instagram platform. She spoke in an interview over Zoom with The Associated Press on Wednesday.Īround the country, parents’ concern has deepened over the impact of social media on kids. “Children’s privacy is enormously important and we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can … to vigorously protect children’s privacy and protect them from data abuses,” said Lina Khan, who has led the consumer-protection agency for a year. The ongoing work will include toughened enforcement of a long-standing law governing kids’ online privacy and eyeing the algorithms used by social media platforms targeting young people. WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the Federal Trade Commission says the agency is pushing a robust agenda of actions and policies to help safeguard children’s privacy online.
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