Privacy and procurement
COPPA
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
The US federal law governing online collection of personal information from children under 13, and how a school can consent on a parent’s behalf.
What it is
COPPA governs how online services collect personal information from children under 13. It is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC’s amended COPPA Rule took effect on 23 June 2025, with full compliance required by 22 April 2026.
The school-consent pathway, and the condition attached to it
- A school can consent in a parent’s place
- The FTC permits a school to authorise collection on behalf of parents when the data is used solely for educational purposes.
- Commercial use breaks it
- If a vendor uses children’s personal information for any commercial purpose, including contextual advertising, the school cannot consent on the parents’ behalf. There is no partial version of this.
What PlannedQuest does
PlannedQuest is COPPA compliant. Accounts for students under 13 exist only where a district has engaged us and authorised them.
We use student data solely to deliver the service to that district.
We run no advertising, no advertising pixels, no session replay, and no third-party marketing trackers, which is what keeps the school-consent pathway open.