Weight Watchers fined for harvesting US child data
WW International (formerly Weight Watchers) and its subsidiary Kurbo were fined USD 1.5 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for illegally collecting personal data from children under 13 without parental consent . The companies marketed a weight loss app to children as young as eight and failed to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), according to the FTC. Hundreds of children were able to sign up to use Kurbo using false birthdays without parental permission and could then change their ages once they had regis tered . Kurbo also failed to inform parents about its data collection practices for kids, and kept the data for many years, possibly to help develop other services. The FTC ordered WW International ( aka Weight Watcher s ) t o 'destroy any algorithms derived from the data', and to pay a U SD 1.5 million penalty. System 🤖 Kurbo 🔗 Operator: WW International/Weight Watchers/Kurbo Developer: WW International/Weight Watchers/Kurbo Country: USA Sector: Consumer goods Purpose: Manage eating habits Technology: Application Issue: Privacy Legal, regulatory 👩🏼⚖️ https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2022/03/ftc-takes-action-against-company-formerly-known-weight-watchers https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/filed_complaint.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/wwkurbostipulatedorder.pdf
- Date it happened
- 2018-01-01
- Organisation involved
- WW International/Weight Watchers/Kurbo
- Product, system or model
- Kurbo
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