Ms. Letitia James
Office of the New York State Attorney General
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224-0341
RE: Child Data Protection Act, Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
To whom it may concern:
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) submits these comments in connection with the preliminary efforts of the New York Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to implement regulations under the New York Child Data Protection Act (NYCDPA). ESA is the U.S. association for companies that publish computer and video games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet. There are over 340 video game companies in the state of New York.
The video game industry is committed to ensuring that young players have safe and positive experiences online and continues to invest in developing solutions to promote privacy, safety, and appropriate parental involvement. To further these objectives, ESA urges the OAG to develop rules that provide operators with the flexibility to implement privacy protections, consent methods, and other measures that best suit their products and users. Specifically, ESA asks the OAG to:
- adopt COPPA’s flexible approach to parental consent, avoid overly prescriptive informed consent requirements that could unduly burden or confuse users, and encourage the voluntary development and use of platform-based tools for informed notice and parental consent;
- provide a workable and clear standard for determining when a service is directed to minors that is consistent with COPPA and respects the constitutional rights of minors and adults;
- exclude de-identified data from regulation, which is consistent with the approach taken under state privacy laws; and
- align the NYCDPA’s “support for internal business operations” exception to include activities permitted under COPPA.
Each of these points is discussed further in Sections I-IV below.
