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Ignoring the law, the company collected data from minors.
The company Meta, the owner of Instagram, was at the center of a loud scandal. The company is accused of violating the Children's Confidential Information Act in the United States. The plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit against the company from 33 states. According to legal documents, the company has received more than 1.1 million complaints about users under the age of 13 since the beginning of 2019, but has only blocked "a small portion" of such accounts. Moreover, Meta continued to collect children's personal data, including location and email addresses, without parental permission.
The charges are based on the Federal Children's Online Privacy Act of 1998, which requires verified permission from parents before collecting personal data of children under the age of 13. For violations of the law, fines of more than $ 50,000 are provided for each case.
The lawsuit against Meta accuses the company of failing to create effective systems to identify and exclude younger users because it considered children a critical demographic group for its continued growth. The company allegedly had many indicators indicating the presence of underage users, including internal reports and requests from parents.
In one case in 2019, Meta employees discussed why the accounts of a 12-year-old girl were not deleted, despite requests and complaints from her mother. The reason for this was that the company's representatives "could not accurately determine that the user was a minor."
This isn't the first time the social network has faced allegations of privacy violations. In 2019, the company agreed to pay a record $ 5 billion to settle charges of defrauding users about controlling their privacy.
Now Meta faces a new challenge as states bring charges of violating children's privacy, which may prove easier to prove than charges of encouraging social media addiction among young people. Since 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission has successfully filed similar lawsuits against major technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Epic Games.
The company Meta, the owner of Instagram, was at the center of a loud scandal. The company is accused of violating the Children's Confidential Information Act in the United States. The plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit against the company from 33 states. According to legal documents, the company has received more than 1.1 million complaints about users under the age of 13 since the beginning of 2019, but has only blocked "a small portion" of such accounts. Moreover, Meta continued to collect children's personal data, including location and email addresses, without parental permission.
The charges are based on the Federal Children's Online Privacy Act of 1998, which requires verified permission from parents before collecting personal data of children under the age of 13. For violations of the law, fines of more than $ 50,000 are provided for each case.
The lawsuit against Meta accuses the company of failing to create effective systems to identify and exclude younger users because it considered children a critical demographic group for its continued growth. The company allegedly had many indicators indicating the presence of underage users, including internal reports and requests from parents.
In one case in 2019, Meta employees discussed why the accounts of a 12-year-old girl were not deleted, despite requests and complaints from her mother. The reason for this was that the company's representatives "could not accurately determine that the user was a minor."
This isn't the first time the social network has faced allegations of privacy violations. In 2019, the company agreed to pay a record $ 5 billion to settle charges of defrauding users about controlling their privacy.
Now Meta faces a new challenge as states bring charges of violating children's privacy, which may prove easier to prove than charges of encouraging social media addiction among young people. Since 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission has successfully filed similar lawsuits against major technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Epic Games.
