The Federal Trade Commission obtained an order against education technology provider Edmodo for illegally collecting personal data from children without parental consent and using that data for advertising purposes, violating COPPA regulations.
California-based Edmodo operated an online educational platform and mobile app until approximately September 2022, offering virtual class spaces for teachers and schools through free and subscription-based services. The company collected personal information from children under 13 including names, email addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, and persistent identifiers, which it used to provide advertisements. The FTC found that Edmodo violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule by failing to provide adequate information about data collection practices to schools and teachers, and by failing to obtain verifiable parental consent. The company improperly outsourced COPPA compliance responsibilities to schools while providing confusing and inaccurate guidance about obtaining consent. Edmodo also retained children's personal information indefinitely until 2020, when it implemented a two-year deletion policy. The company used collected data for non-educational purposes, specifically advertising, which required direct parental consent under COPPA. The FTC imposed a $6 million penalty, suspended due to the company's inability to pay, and established comprehensive requirements for any future U.S. operations including prohibitions on conditioning participation on excessive data collection and using children's information for advertising.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that memorize and leak sensitive personal data or infer private information about individuals without their consent. Unexpected or unauthorized sharing of data and information can compromise user expectation of privacy, assist identity theft, or cause loss of confidential intellectual property.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.