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Disney has agreed to pay $10 million in civil penalties to settle allegations that it violated federal laws on data collection intended to protect children.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that a federal court has issued a stipulated order resolving a case against Disney Worldwide Services and Disney Entertainment Operations.
In a complaint filed in a California district court, the DOJ alleged that Disney failed to properly label some of its videos on YouTube as intended for children. By failing to do so, Disney and its partners could have targeted ads to children on YouTube and illegally collected children’s personal information without informing parents or obtaining their consent.
The lawsuit claims this mislabeling violated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The law, first passed in 1998, prohibits website operators from knowingly collecting personal information from children under 13 unless they first obtain consent from a parent.
“The Department of Justice is working hard to ensure that parents have a say in how information about their children is collected and used,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a statement. press release. “The ministry will take prompt action to eliminate any unlawful violations of parents’ rights to protect the privacy of their children.”
Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo. However, a Disney spokesperson said Axios when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) first disclosed details of the agreement: “Supporting the well-being and safety of children and families is at the heart of what we do. This agreement does not involve Disney owned and operated digital platforms, but rather is limited to the distribution of some of our content on the YouTube platform.”
According to the DOJ, Disney’s YouTube content has racked up billions of views in the United States alone. The complaint alleges that mislabeled videos appeared on several Disney-owned YouTube channels, including the Pixar channel, the Disney+ channel, and the Disney Animation Studios channel. The videos featured popular cartoon characters from films like The Incredibles, Coco, Frozen and Tangled.
After a $170 million settlement With the FTC in 2019 over similar COPPA violations, YouTube began requiring creators to indicate whether videos they upload are “made for children” or “not made for children.” Videos labeled as made for children have certain features disabled to comply with COPPA, including personalized advertising, collection of personal information, and comments.
This case is one of the first in which a content creator has reached a settlement with the DOJ since YouTube’s COPPA settlement.
Beyond the financial penalty, the court order prohibits Disney from violating COPPA on YouTube and requires the company to establish an ongoing content review program to ensure its videos on the site comply with the law.
