Coalition Pressures Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft to Stop Tracking Children's Data

More than 20 organizations, including the 5Rights Foundation, Global Action Plan and the Alana Institute, through its Child and Consumption program, sent a letter to Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, demanding that these tech giants stop collecting data. of children and adolescents for advertising segmentation. Additionally, the coalition calls on these companies to stop the commercial exploitation of children in a digital environment and take steps to ensure a safe digital experience for children.

The letter is part of the Global Action Plan's "Stop Advertising to Children" campaign, which argues that online behavioral advertising accelerates consumerism, harms well-being and increases already dangerous stress on the planet.

The document finds that ad tech companies collect 72 million data points on a child, up to age 13. This shows the degree of lack of respect for data protection laws, in force in several countries, and the high level of monitoring imposed on children, who are evaluated and profiled so that they can receive advertising directed at children to the point that your attention is monetized in some way. more effective.

It should be remembered that children, especially up to the age of 12, do not understand the persuasive nature of advertising, due to the experience of a peculiar process of physical, mental and social development. Therefore, they cannot distinguish between entertainment content and advertising content. By understanding the child as hypervulnerable, Brazilian law already prohibits the practice of advertising by children in any media or living space, including the digital environment.

“It is unequal and unfair how these companies take advantage of the hyper-vulnerability of children to exploit them commercially, especially in these times of pandemic, when children are increasingly online either to study, communicate with family and friends or for others. We want the most powerful technology companies in the world to stop mining data from children and not allow advertisers to target that audience. Children have the right to use the Internet safely and free from the commercial abuse of children's advertising, "he says. Pedro Hartung, coordinator of the Child and Consumer program at the Alana Institute