In a complaint filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, authorities said WW International, Inc., formerly known as Weight Watcher. And Kurbo, Inc. An eight-year-old child who claimed to have sold a weight loss app was collected personal information without parental permission. The settlement order requires WW International and Kurbo to remove personal information illegally collected from children under the age of 13, destroy data-derived algorithms, and pay a $ 1.5 million fine.
“Weight Watchers and Kurbo have sold weight management services for children up to the age of eight, and have since illegally collected sensitive personal health information,” said Lina M. Khan, Federal Trade Commission. The chief says. “Our orders to these companies require us to delete fraudulently obtained data, destroy algorithms derived from it, and pay fines for violations of the law.”
“Parents have the right to know and agree before companies collect personal information about their children,” said Brian M. Boynton, Assistant Secretary of Justice, Chief of the Department of Justice’s Citizens Department. “This department is committed to increasing protection against fraudulent information gathering from consumers, especially children.”
WW International and Kurbo sell a health and wellness app and website called Kurbo by WW for use by teens and families, as well as children up to the age of eight. The app tracks food intake, activity, weight, and also collects personal information such as name, email address, and date of birth. Until late 2019, users will be able to sign up for Kurbo through the WW service either through the app or on the website by showing that they are a parent signing up for their child or a child over the age of 13. rice field.
Under the FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Regulations (COPPA Regulations), websites, apps, and online services that collect personal information for children or intentionally from children before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children. , Parents need to be notified and consented. 13.13.
The complaint is that Kurbo by the WW sign-up process falsely claims that young users are over 13 years old, despite the text stating that children under the age of 13 need to sign up through their parents. Claimed to have urged. In fact, between 2014 and 2019, hundreds of users who claimed to be over 13 and registered with the app then changed their profile’s date of birth to show that they were actually under 13. I did. Nonetheless, these users continued to access the app until FTC staff contacted the company.
According to the complaint, the application options for children over the age of 13 were revised in 2020, but issues with the application process remained. Kurbo also alleges that he could not provide a mechanism to ensure that the person who chose the parent’s sign-up option was actually a parent and not a child trying to circumvent the age limit.
In addition, parents who have registered their children on the company’s website or affiliated websites have alleged that they only see notifications about information gathering when they click on hyperlinks embedded in other sets of links. did. According to the complaint, despite changes to the direct privacy notice in 2019, Kurbo by WW was unable to comply with the notification requirements of the COPPA rules.
Finally, the complaints alleged by WW and Kurbo violated the data retention provisions of the COPPA Regulations by retaining the child’s personal information indefinitely and deleting it only when requested by the parent. As part of the settlement, the company is also prohibited from retaining future data collected from children under the age of 13 for more than a year since the child last used Kurbo on WW.
Also required for settlement orders A company that destroys all previously collected personal information that did not comply with the parental notice and consent requirements of the COPPA rules. Unless the company subsequently obtains parental consent to retain such data. The settlement also requires companies to destroy affected work products using data illegally collected from children in violation of COPPA.
The Commission’s vote to inquire to submit a civil punishment complaint to the Justice Department was 5-0.The Department of Justice has filed a complaint and an order stipulated in the U.S. District Court. For the Northern California area. The court approved the order on March 3, 2022.
