Children under 13 are not allowed to use Coursera, and if the company discovers a child's data was collected without parental consent, it will delete that information.
This analysis describes what Coursera's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision operationalizes compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and establishes Coursera's procedural framework for age-gating access and managing data collection from minors. It defines the conditions under which personally identifiable information collection from children is permitted and the remedial steps Coursera will take upon discovering non-compliant collection.
The updated terms remove the explicit guarantee that Coursera provides a 7-day free trial for subscriptions. The revised language states that 'certain subscriptions may come with a free trial period' without specifying a default duration or which subscriptions include trials. This creates operational uncertainty for users: trial availability and length are no longer stated in the main terms but are now delegated entirely to individual checkout pages. Users evaluating whether a subscription includes a trial must now visit the specific product page rather than relying on the standard terms.
View change record →If a child under 13 creates a Coursera account without parental consent, their personal data — including learning activity and contact information — may be collected before deletion procedures are triggered, creating a privacy risk for minors.
How other platforms handle this
The services are not directed to children under the age of 13, and Asana does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 16 years of age, you may not use the services without the consent of your parent or legal guardian.
The Service is not directed to children under the age of 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on the Service. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information.
Our Services are not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, please do not use our Services or provide any personal information to us.
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"The Services are not directed to children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use or access the Services at any time or in any manner. If Coursera learns that personally identifiable information has been collected on the Services from persons under 13 years of age and without verifiable parental consent, then Coursera will take the appropriate steps to delete this information.— Excerpt from Coursera's Coursera Terms of Use
1) REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: This provision directly implicates COPPA (15 U.S.C. § 6501-6506) and the FTC's COPPA Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 312), which require verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. The FTC is the primary enforcement authority. In the EU, GDPR Art. 8 sets the age of digital consent at 16 (with member states permitted to lower it to 13), and the UK Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code) imposes additional design and data minimization requirements for services likely accessed by minors. 2)
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This provision operationalizes compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and establishes Coursera's procedural framework for age-gating access and managing data collection from minors. It defines the conditions under which personally identifiable information collection from children is permitted and the remedial steps Coursera will take upon discovering non-compliant collection.
If a child under 13 creates a Coursera account without parental consent, their personal data — including learning activity and contact information — may be collected before deletion procedures are triggered, creating a privacy risk for minors.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 18 platforms. See the full comparison.
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