Guidelines for Online Resources - COPPA 

As you find apps and websites that best fit your learning objectives, keep in mind that some of these require students to create their own accounts. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires any child under age 13 to have parental consent before creating accounts on certain sites and "prohibits the operator of a website or online service directed at children under 13 from collecting personal information from a child..." (15 U.S.C. sections 6501-6506, and Federal Trade Commission rules, 16 C.F.R. Part 312). Please refer to the Texas Association of School Board's (TASB) brief on this topic: https://www.tasb.org/Services/Legal-Services/TASB-School-Law-eSource/Business/documents/technology_in_the_classroom.aspx

It is the responsibility of individual campuses to acquire parental consent when needed. If you would like help creating a parental consent form, the campus principal can contact the Digital Learning Team for guidance.

For your reference, and to give you some peace of mind, the following link lists the digital resources (apps/sites) that have signed the student privacy pledge*: https://studentprivacypledge.org/signatories/

The K-12 School Service Provider *Pledge to Safeguard Student Privacy commits to:

• "Not collect, maintain, use or share student personal information beyond that needed for authorized educational/school purposes, or as authorized by the parent/student."
• "Not sell student personal information."
• "Not use or disclose student information collected through an educational/school service (whether personal information or otherwise) for behavioral targeting of advertisements to students."
• and much more!

Also, visit our Digital Tools to Support Learning page for those that have been vetted by us and that are labeled whether they're available for over/under age 13.