Buried in Meta’s $18B settlement is a legal pass on kids’ data

In addition to paying out up to $18 billion and adding child safety measures, Meta’s settlement agreement with attorneys general from 29 states includes an interesting provision: the states have agreed not to sue Meta under existing child safety laws over its retention and use of children’s data.

That permission is being granted for the limited purpose of training and testing Meta’s age-assurance model and includes guardrails, but it’s a curious policy decision to make in a case centered on child safety, and one that could be difficult to properly enforce.

As specified in the settlement agreement, Meta must develop, train, and begin testing a model designed to detect which users on Meta’s platforms are under the age of 13. This must be done within a year of the document’s effective date. (While the agreement doesn’t specify that the model has to be AI-based, Meta’s current age-detection tools are...

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