Children under 13 (or 16 in some regions) are not allowed to use Facebook, and Meta says it will delete any data it discovers was collected from children under 13.
While Meta prohibits users under 13, its age verification mechanisms have been found inadequate by regulators in the US and EU, meaning children's personal data may be collected and used for advertising in violation of their legal protections under COPPA and GDPR.
How other platforms handle this
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Despite this policy, Meta has faced repeated enforcement actions and regulatory investigations for knowingly allowing underage users on its platforms, meaning the policy may not be consistently enforced in practice.
(1) REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: This provision directly engages COPPA (15 U.S.C. §6501 et seq.) and its implementing regulations at 16 C.F.R. Part 312, enforced by the FTC, which prohibits collection of personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. GDPR Art. 8 sets the digital consent age at 16 (with member states permitted to lower to 13), and requires parental consent for children below that threshold. The UK Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code, ICO) imposes heightened data protection standards for services likely to be accessed by under-18s. The FTC's 2023 complaint and proposed order against Meta specifically alleged systemic violations of COPPA and the 2020 FTC order regarding Instagram and children's privacy. (2)
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