The Federal Trade Commission proposed new sanctions on Facebook’s parent company Meta for breaching the terms of a $5 billion privacy settlement by misleading parents about their ability to control who their children could communicate with on the platform. The order imposes new mechanisms that require Facebook to restructure its approach to privacy and accountability.

The agency proposed new sanctions on Meta, including a blanket ban on the company to restrict profiting from the data of its users under eighteen (18) on any of its platforms. Meta would also be subject to expanded requirements, including monitoring facial recognition technology and additional user protections.

“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”

The first complaint filed against Facebook was secured in 2012 and barred the company from misrepresenting its privacy practices. In 2020, a second privacy order against Facebook forced the company to pay a $5 billion civil penalty. It also expanded the required privacy program and the independent third-party assessor’s role in evaluating the effectiveness of Facebook’s program. Additionally, the order required Facebook to implement greater security for its users’ personal information and imposed restrictions on using facial recognition and telephone numbers obtained for account security.

The independent, third-party assessor was tasked with reviewing whether Facebook’s privacy program satisfied the 2020 order’s requirements. The assessor identified several gaps and weaknesses in Facebook’s privacy program. According to the Order to Show Cause, the breadth and significance of these deficiencies pose substantial risks to the public. The Order to Show Cause alleges that Facebook violated its first two orders (2012 and 2020) by giving app developers access to users’ private information after promising to restrict access if they had not used the app in the previous ninety (90) days.

The FTC has also asked Facebook to respond to allegations that they misrepresented the extent to which parents could control whom their children communicated with through its Messenger Kids product. The FTC contends that these misrepresentations violated the 2012 order, the FTC Act, and the COPPA Rule. Under the COPPA Rule, operators of websites or online services directed at children under thirteen (13) must notify parents and obtain their verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children.

In an unsigned blog post response titled “Upholding Our Commitment to Protecting Your Privacy: What the FTC Gets Wrong,” Meta asserts that none of these issues warrants the “drastic changes the FTC is seeking just three years into our decades-long agreement and that the FTC lacks unilateral authority to impose. We have not violated the agreement and operate an industry-leading privacy program.”

Meta has vowed to “vigorously” fight the FTC’s action and has until June to respond to the FTC’s motion. The tech superpower could also bring a lawsuit in district court seeking to stop the FTC from progressing with the proposal.

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This is a reference to FTC Proposes Blanket Prohibition Preventing Facebook from Monetizing Youth Data, available at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/ftc-proposes-blanket-prohibition-preventing-facebook-monetizing-youth-data (last modified May 3, 2023).