BALTIMORE (Legal Newsline) - Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler submitted the final report Monday of the Workgroup on Children's Online Privacy Protection to two legislative committees.
The report builds on Gansler's efforts to better protect online threats to the privacy of consumers. The document shared multiple ideas to more effectively protect children's personal information.
"Children are particularly vulnerable to online invasions of privacy because they may be unaware of the sensitive information they are exposing on the Internet or how the information they share might be used," Gansler said. "This report highlights the many important issues that surround children's privacy on the Web and on mobile devices, and offers legislators tools to consider for addressing them."
The report resulted from six months of meetings and discussion by the 18-member workgroup. It outlined the current and future environment of children's online privacy regulation in other states and by the federal government, examining current risks and challenges to online privacy.
The workgroup proposed multiple regulations for future legislative or regulatory action, including requiring the encryption of sensitive information collected from and about children, updating existing state statutory definitions of personal information and prohibiting cloud service providers from using any data they collect in state public schools for commercial purposes.
The Maryland House Economic Matters Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will review the report.
Maryland AG submits report on kids' online privacy
