Building a Children's and Teen Privacy Program: A Practitioner's Guide to Age Assurance, Verifiable Parental Consent, and Product Design
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide builds a children's and teen privacy program from an unexamined product to one that can answer a regulator, and it starts where the exposure actually is rather than where the statute begins. It opens with the software development kit inventory and the network traffic check, because identifier transmission from a child-directed surface is publicly observable and is the basis of most enforcement. It then works the audience determination memo, the internal searches that reveal actual knowledge the company already has, and the age screen that supports a defense rather than undermining it. It specifies the verifiable parental consent flow screen by screen, the parent dashboard, and the retention regime including derived data. It treats teens as a separate workstream driven by state law, handles education deployments, and closes with vendor terms, enforcement response, and the annual cycle.
IP and Technology > Privacy Data Security | Guide | Published 21 October 2023 - Updated 6 February 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide builds a children's and teen privacy program from an unexamined product to one that can answer a regulator, and it starts where the exposure actually is rather than where the statute begins. It opens with the software development kit inventory and the network traffic check, because identifier transmission from a child-directed surface is publicly observable and is the basis of most enforcement. It then works the audience determination memo, the internal searches that reveal actual knowledge the company already has, and the age screen that supports a defense rather than undermining it. It specifies the verifiable parental consent flow screen by screen, the parent dashboard, and the retention regime including derived data. It treats teens as a separate workstream driven by state law, handles education deployments, and closes with vendor terms, enforcement response, and the annual cycle.
Keywords: audience determination memo · actual knowledge discovery · software development kit inventory · network traffic verification · age screen design · age assurance proportionality · verifiable parental consent flow · direct notice drafting · parent dashboard · internal operations exception · contextual monetization · retention per data element · derived data deletion · teen workstream · design code tracking · edtech school consent · vendor operator terms · safe harbor assessment · enforcement response · annual review
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