An Open Invitation to Meta, TikTok and YouTube: Listen to the Signal

Meta Says We Need an Industry-Wide Solution. We Agree.

PRIVO issues an open invitation to Meta, TikTok and YouTube to help advance the Minors Protection Registry™ and give parents a more portable way to protect their children online.

An $18 billion settlement. A $400 million settlement. Within days of each other. 
That should do more than make headlines. It should make us ask: What can we do differently?

This week, two of the world’s largest social media platforms have been at the center of extraordinary settlements involving the protection of children and teens online.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced a $400 million settlement with TikTok and ByteDance in litigation related to compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), calling it one of the largest recoveries ever obtained in a case involving the law. DOJ pointed to strengthened safeguards for younger users, improved age-related controls and enhanced parental oversight.

Days later, Meta agreed to a proposed $18 billion settlement with U.S. states that includes significant changes involving age assurance and protections for young users.

Different cases. Different legal issues. But together, they raise a much bigger question:

How long are we going to keep solving the protection of children online platform by platform?

Much of the conversation this week has focused on age assurance. That’s important. But age assurance is only the beginning.

Knowing a minor is present is only the beginning. What happens next is what protects them.

What protections should apply? When is parental permission required? What data can be collected? What experiences should change? And why should parents have to create an account and establish their identity and relationship to their child over and over again across every platform their child encounters?

Meta is now publicly calling for an industry-wide approach.

We agree.

For more than 25 years, PRIVO has worked at the intersection of children’s privacy, age assurance, identity, parental consent and permission. We believe this moment calls for something bigger than another platform-specific solution.

It calls for shared infrastructure that gives parents agency. That’s the thinking behind the PRIVO Minors Protection Registry™: a privacy-preserving way to signal to participating services that a minor is present, so appropriate protections, permissions and access decisions can follow.

A minor is present. Protection should follow.

Parents shouldn’t have to create and maintain an account with every platform simply to help protect their children. And every digital service shouldn’t have to independently rediscover the same child.

Meta has called for an industry-wide solution. Maybe it’s time to listen to the signal.

Today, we’re extending an open invitation to Meta, TikTok and YouTube to join us at the table.

An Open Invitation to Meta, TikTok and YouTube: Listen to the Signal

To the leaders of Meta, TikTok and YouTube:

This week’s $400 million TikTok settlement and proposed $18 billion Meta settlement have focused global attention on age assurance, parental oversight and the responsibility platforms have to better protect young people online.

Meta has now publicly called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar protections, saying that because teens move across many apps, “we need an industry-wide solution.” On that point, we agree. In fact, PRIVO has been working toward one.

For more than 25 years, we have worked at the intersection of children’s privacy, age assurance, identity, parental consent and permission. Over the years, we have spoken with major technology platforms—including your companies—about the need for a better, more interoperable way to recognize and protect minors online.

The problem has never been confined to a single platform. And the answer cannot be requiring every parent to create an account with every service their child may encounter, repeatedly establish who they are and their relationship to their child, and navigate a different set of controls at every digital door.

Parents need agency that can travel with them.

That’s one of the reasons PRIVO created the Minors Protection Registry™. The concept is straightforward: give families a privacy-preserving way to establish that a minor is present and enable participating services to listen for that signal and apply the appropriate protections, permissions or access decisions.

A minor is present. Protection should follow.

Age assurance is an important part of the solution. But identifying age is not the finish line. It is what enables the next decision.

What protections apply?
Is parental permission required?
Should access change?
What data can be collected?
What experience should this young person receive?

An interoperable protection signal can help make those decisions possible without requiring families to start over platform by platform.

The Meta settlement demonstrates just how enormous the financial and human consequences can become when our digital systems fail young people.

The investment required to build shared preventative infrastructure is a fraction of the cost of addressing harm after it occurs.

So today, PRIVO is extending an open invitation to Meta, TikTok and YouTube:

Join us at the table.

Help us advance the Minors Protection Registry as shared infrastructure that gives parents greater agency and helps companies recognize when protections for a minor should apply. This doesn’t need to belong to one platform. It needs to work across them.

You have called for an industry-wide response.

We’re ready to have that conversation.

Sincerely,

Denise G. Tayloe
Founder & CEO
PRIVO

Join the Conversation

The Minors Protection Registry is designed to work across the digital ecosystem—not for one platform, but with the companies, policymakers and families working to create safer, more age-appropriate experiences for young people.

We invite platforms, Attorneys General, policymakers, technology providers and other organizations committed to protecting minors online to talk with us about participating in and advancing the Registry.

Learn about the Minors Protection Registry.