The Virginia legislature is considering looking at amending the state’s Consumer Data Protection Act to expand protections related to children’s data.

Some key points in the bill:

• Child defined as under 18, not 13
• COPPA compliance exemption is deleted
• Verified parental consent required for the collection, use or disclosure of information of children.
• Knowingly processing of the information of children is prohibited for (i) targeted advertising, (ii) the sale of such personal data, or (iii) profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning a consumer.

At the same time, West Virginia is considering a COPPA+ bill for the protection of children. But in that bill, children are defined as “under 18” and conditioning of the service on consent to unnecessary personal information processing is prohibited.

Key points in that bill:

• Trigger: Website or service is directed to children (under 18), or that there is actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from a child.
• Parental consent to the processing is required with some exceptions.
• Prohibition on conditioning a child’s participation in a game, the offering of a prize, or another activity on the child disclosing more personal information than is reasonably necessary to participate in such activity.
• AG will issue regulations that will include incentive for compliance with self-regulatory guidelines.
• Enforcement: by the AG

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