Why do we need parental consent in relation to your children’s data?
We get parental consent for some of our processing of your children’s data to ensure that your child’s privacy and safety is maintained online at all times. This is because children may be less aware of the risks, consequences and safeguards concerned and their rights in relation to the processing of personal data. It also means we can make sure that you, as parents, are informed of and understand what information about your child is being shared and with whom.
What does the law say about this?
In the UK, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 are the main laws about personal data, and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the regulator that manages this area.
In the UK, only children aged 13 or over are able to give their own consent to somebody to allow them to process their personal data. For children under this age, consent needs to be provided by the holder of parental responsibility over the child.
In the USA, it’s slightly different. Here, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to personal data and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates the area. If you collect personal data from any child under the age of 13, you need to get the parent’s consent first.
What does Perfect Play do?
When your child wishes to sign up to Perfect Play, they’ll provide us with your email address and we’ll send you an email to let you know they want to sign up. We’ll ask you to review and accept the terms and conditions that will apply to your child’s use of Perfect Play.
We’ll also ask you to review and confirm some data permissions for your child. You’ll be able to review our Privacy Notice and you can show your child our Children’s Privacy Notice as well so that they can understand what happens to their personal information.
If you’re in the USA, when you give permission, you’ll need to take an additional step for us to verify your identity, either by carrying out a small, test transaction with your payment card or providing your social security number, which is checked against a government database.
Perfect Play has partnered with SuperAwesome, a leading provider of children’s online privacy safety solutions, to manage the secure collection of your consent. SuperAwesome manages the consent collection process. You can learn more about them here.
Where can you find more information on this?
Please take a look at our Privacy Notice to learn more about how we use your and your children’s personal information.
If you’d like to learn more about children’s data in the UK, you can visit the ICO’s website and, for the USA, take a look at this short guide.