Incident 586: FTC Targets Edmodo for Unlawful Use of Children’s Data and Delegating Compliance to Schools

Description: Edmodo, an education technology provider, violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA Rule) by collecting and using children's personal data for advertising purposes without parental consent, according to the FTC. The company outsourced its compliance responsibilities to schools, thereby making them "solely" responsible for COPPA compliance without adequate disclosure. Edmodo is facing a proposed order prohibiting such practices, marking a precedent in the ed tech industry.

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Alleged: Edmodo developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Children whose data was collected and used for advertising and Schools and teachers who were misinformed and burdened with COPPA compliance responsibilities without adequate disclosure.

Incident Stats

Incident ID

586

Report Count

Incident Date

2023-05-22

Editors

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

FTC Says Ed Tech Provider Edmodo Unlawfully Used Children’s Personal Information for Advertising and Outsourced Compliance to School Districts

ftc.gov

ftc.gov · 2023

The Federal Trade Commission has obtained an order against education technology provider Edmodo for collecting personal data from children without obtaining their parent’s consent and using that data for advertising, in violation of the Chi…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.