FTC Chair Khan plans key work on kids' data privacy online

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.

The ongoing work will include toughened enforcement of a long-standing law governing kids’ online privacy and eying the algorithms used by social media platforms targeting young people.

“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,” Lina Khan, who’s headed the consumer-protection agency for a year, said. She spoke in an interview over Zoom with The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Around the country, parents’ concern has deepened over the impact of social media on kids. 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.

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.

The recent tide of mass shootings has also highlighted the power of social media and its influence on young people.

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 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.”

Khan said Wednesday the FTC had heard complaints from parents who, when the pandemic...