Rumble Among 15 Targets of Texas Attorney General’s Child Privacy Probe

Privacy experts who spoke to WIRED described Rumble, Quora and WeChat as unusual suspects but declined to speculate on the reasoning behind their inclusion in the investigation. Josh Golin, executive director of the nonprofit FairPlay, which advocates for digital safety for kids, said the concern isn’t always obvious. Some advocacy groups are concerned about Pinterest, for example, until The story of a British teenager who died from self-harm after being exposed to sensitive content on the platform, he said.

Paxton’s press release last month called its new investigation “an important step in ensuring social media and AI companies comply with our laws designed to protect children from exploitation and harm.”

It was never passed by the United States Congress A comprehensive privacy lawAnd it is Children have not significantly updated the online safety rules In a quarter of a century. This leaves state lawmakers and regulators to play a larger role.

Paxton’s investigation centers on compliance with the Texas Parental Empowerment Act, or SCOPE, to protect children online. which has been implemented In September it applies to any website or app with social media or chat functions and registers users under 18, making it broader than the federal law, which only provides services to users under 13.

SCOPE requires the Services to ask the age of users and to give parents or guardians power over children’s account settings and user data. Companies are also barred from selling information collected about minors without parental permission. In October, Paxton sued TikTok for violating the law by providing inadequate parental controls and disclosing data without consent. TikTok has denied the allegations.

The investigation, announced last month, cited the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, or TDPSAIt came into effect in July and requires parental consent before processing data about users under 13 Paxton’s office has asked the investigated companies to detail their compliance with both the SCOPE Act and the TDPSA, according to a legal filing obtained through a public records request.

In total, the companies must answer eight questions over the next week, including the number of Texas minors they counted as users and blocked for registering an incorrect date of birth. The list of persons with whom data of minors is sold or shared must be reversed. It is not known if any companies have already responded to the demand.

Tech company lobbying groups are challenging the scope law’s constitutionality in court. In August, they won an early and partial victory when a federal judge in Austin, Texas ruled that a provision requiring companies to take steps to prevent minors from self-harming and viewing offensive content was too vague.

But even an outright win may not be a saving grace for tech companies. States including Maryland and New York are expected to implement similar laws later this year, said Ariel Fox Johnson, an attorney and principal at the consultancy Digital Smarts Law & Policy. And state attorneys general can pursue narrower cases under their jurisdiction-unlawful statutes, except for deceptive business practices. “What we see is often information is shared or sold or disclosed in ways that families don’t expect or understand,” Johnson said. “As more laws are enacted that create stronger requirements, it’s becoming more apparent that not everyone is complying.”