YouTube Accused of Illegally Collecting Data from Children

The heavy price of children watching hours of videos of unboxing videos, weird Elsa and Spider-Man cartoons and sing-a-longs: Data.

As proven by the ongoing issues of privacy on social media, such as the ongoing Cambridge Analytica-Facebook debacle, user data in the wrong hands can mean a lot of trouble for billion-dollar corporations. YouTube, too, who has spent nearly a year licking its wounds over their kids' app, both because the content they’re feeding kids is deeply disturbing and it might constitute abuse, now finds itself in data-collection hot seat.

On Monday, a bloc of more than 20 digital and child privacy advocacy groups filed a federal complaint accusing the video-streaming giant of illegally collecting data from tens of millions of U.S. children for several years. Led by the Center for Digital Democracy and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the coalition demands the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate YouTube for potential violations of the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a U.S. federal law that limits the scope of data collection from minors and requires parental consent or age-restriction. The complaint also demands that YouTube promptly change their privacy policies for the underage.

"Google has made substantial profits from the collection and use of personal data from children on YouTube,” reads the complaint. “Its illegal collection has been going on for many years and involves tens of millions of US children.”

The groups claim that an estimate of more than 23 million children have had their data “inappropriately collected” and request that, if found guilty, YouTube be fined up to $41,484 per violation, which could rack up to billions of dollars.

The latest stumbling block for the video-sharing platform comes on the heels of its complete overhaul of the YouTube Kids Application, the company's latest effort in response to the growing criticisms of its shoddy content moderation and parental controls. According to YouTube, the newly improved app will do away with the algorithm that ended up bizarre and upsetting videos featuring 8-year-olds in diapers pretending to be babies (as well Flat-Earth conspiracy videos that generate so much ad revenue) and feature a whitelist system that gives parents control of what their children view. By removing the algorithm, the algorithm that pushes nightmarish Spider-man and Elsa videos to the fore will not be available unless designated. The curation of the whitelist will be handled by humans.

In response to the allegations, YouTube stated that it "will read the complaint thoroughly" in an email exchange with the Associated Press.