Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On October 20, 2022, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth published a white paper entitled Protecting Children’s Data Privacy, Policy Paper I, International Issues and Compliance Challenges. The paper identifies and explores the key issues and challenges that organizations and data protection authorities face in the context of globally divergent legal standards and policy approaches relating to children’s data.

In particular, the paper:

• Explores children’s data privacy regulations within the broader context of empowering children to access and participate in online services, and the emerging concept of “best interest of the child;”
• Considers the wide disparity in requirements across different jurisdictions for obtaining consent to the collection and processing of children’s data, and the impact of the diverging requirements on organizations’ efforts to comply;
• Discusses age assurance methods, as well as the tension between the need for relative certainty about age on the one hand, and the increased collection of personal data to enable such certainty on the other;
• Examines the challenges of providing meaningful transparency in the context of children’s data; and
• Discusses the possibility of applying a risk-based approach to protecting children’s data and the outstanding issues to be resolved in that regard.

Policy Paper I sets the stage for a second policy paper in 2023―Protecting Children’s Data Privacy Policy Paper II: Practical Solutions to Protect Children and Enhance Compliance (working title). That paper will examine existing and potential solutions and innovative technology and policy measures that can address the challenges identified in Policy Paper I.