(This is why Facebook, for example, does not allow children under 13 to have accounts.) The day before filing the lawsuit, Balderas wrote a letter to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai demanding Google stop what Balderas referred to as “active, ongoing, and illegal data collection.” “While purporting to offer only educational services, Google instead has stripped children and parents of autonomy and control of their most sensitive personal information, forcing children to acquiesce to constant monitoring, in perpetuity, in exchange for their education,” the suit says.ĬOPPA says that any companies that collect online data about children under the age of 13 must have their parents’ consent first. While Google denies the charges, the very existence of the lawsuit - and the fact that it’s not the first time a government agency has sued Google over how it handles children’s data - could prompt other states and school systems to reevaluate their agreements with the company.īalderas filed the lawsuit on Thursday accusing Google of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) - one of the only federal laws regulating digital data privacy - as well as the state’s Unfair Practices Act. New Mexico’s attorney general, Hector Balderas, claims the hidden price is children’s data, which it collects without their knowledge or the required parental consent, even when the technology isn’t being used for educational purposes. Google offers its educational products to schools for little to no obvious cost. The suit calls into question what a major for-profit player in the nonprofit educational space - which counts millions of children among its users - is doing with whatever data it collects from them. New Mexico is suing Google for allegedly invading children’s privacy through educational products it provides to the state’s schools, claiming it tracks students’ activities on their personal devices outside the classroom.

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