Two-Thirds of Adults Say Kids Should Be 13 to Use Internet Alone

The public fear of children falling prey to online predators or the pitfalls of losing privacy when kids share too much information was well expressed in a new University of Michigan poll when the majority of the public supported updating federal laws that require Internet safety standards to protect kids.

The poll found that two-thirds of adults think children should be at least 13 years old to use the Internet on their own. But 29 percent of the parents with children age 9 to 12 said their children have their own handheld Wi-Fi enabled devices, which may mean children are online and unsupervised.

The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health recently asked adults nationwide about Internet use and proposed changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA.

COPPA was enacted to protect young children from some of these Internet dangers by prohibiting collection of personal information through websites if the user is under age 13. But COPPA was written in 1998, before the dawn of smartphones, applications and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The Federal Trade Commission is considering updating COPPA to reflect technology advances in the past decade.

Although social networking sites like Facebook restrict access to users under age 13, 18 percent of parents polled said their children age 9-12 have their own social networking profile. So it's not surprising that adults think COPPA needs updating, said Matthew M. Davis M.D., M.A.P.P., director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.

"So much has changed in the 14 years since COPPA was enacted: Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, along with applications. This report underscores the concerns among the general public to make sure proper safeguards are enacted to protect kids," Davis said.

Most adults expressed strong support for the proposed updates. The poll found that 60 percent of adults expressed strong support for prohibiting websites and applications designed for kids from collecting personal information of children under age 13.

The respondents showed similarly strong support to require websites and apps to ask users to confirm they are at least 13 years old and to require cell phone service providers and app developers to comply with COPPA regulations for users under age 13.