Washington – The U.S. Senate will take steps today to pass the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA). Passage of this legislative package, which includes the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), would lead to broad restrictions on online speech, raise serious First Amendment concerns, and create confusing compliance problems for businesses’ efforts to protect young people online.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has advocated for baseline federal privacy legislation and online protections for children for more than a decade as a leader in fostering industry efforts to advance trust and safety online. Most recently, CCIA joined a letter with 15 civil society and industry groups highlighting concerns with KOSA.
The following can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Matt Schruers:
“We support the broadly shared goal of protecting younger users online. But we do not protect children by silencing them; nor do we foster access to online communities through suppression. Not only does KOSPA raise serious First Amendment concerns by silencing speech, it would also create greater privacy risks through forced data collections and untested age-gating technologies.”
