Markey, Castor Ask FTC to Investigate Kids Privacy Claims at Meta
The FTC should investigate allegations that Meta violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by knowingly allowing children to use its virtual reality platform without parental consent, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said in a letter to Chairman Andrew Ferguson on Thursday.
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Nonprofit Fairplay also asked the FTC to investigate Meta for allegedly violating COPPA by allowing children younger than 13 to access a gaming platform, the organization announced Thursday. Personal data of users is collected on the Horizon Worlds virtual-reality gaming platform, including information from those younger than 13 without a mechanism for parental consent, Fairplay alleged.
Markey and Castor cited the petition from Fairplay. There’s “significant evidence” showing Meta and its executives “knew children were using Horizon Worlds, its virtual reality (VR) platform, and yet failed to obtain parental consent before collecting their personal information, as COPPA requires,” they said. “An accompanying sworn statement by a new Meta whistleblower further suggests Meta intentionally ignored child users on Horizon Worlds and disregarded its obligations under COPPA.”
Meta said in a statement: “We're committed to providing safe, age-appropriate experiences on our platform. Parents are required to manage accounts for pre-teens 10-12 on Quest, and grant permission for them to access Horizon Worlds. We offer reporting tools so anyone can report suspected underage accounts to us, and if we become aware of a pre-teen using an account meant for someone 13 or older, we'll take steps to ensure they're in the right experience. This includes requiring proof of age, switching to a parent-managed account, or deleting the account altogether.”
Fairplay's “months-long, rigorous investigation shows that Meta knows that children under 13 make up a substantial percentage of users within Horizon Worlds, that these children are accessing the platform improperly, and that Meta is collecting copious amounts of their data without parental consent in flagrant violation of COPPA," Fairplay Policy Counsel Haley Hinkle said in the press release. "Our filing also shows that Meta’s conduct is causing substantial harm to young users, who face harassment, bullying, financial harms, and the risk of sexual predation when they log on to Horizon Worlds."
"In 2023, the FTC proposed that Meta should not be permitted to monetize children’s data anymore," said Hinkle. "We present the FTC with this additional proof that Meta continually fails to protect youth on its platforms, and we urge the agency to investigate Meta and address its violations to the fullest extent of the law.”
In Fairplay's letter to the FTC, the nonprofit asked the commission to investigate Meta for COPPA violations. Fairplay said it conducted its own probe from July 2024 to April 2025, logging the percentage of users "who obviously had children’s voices." Additionally, more than 100 reviews of the gaming platform on Meta's app mention the presence of children, Fairplay said.
“During my time at Meta, it was widely known that children were accessing Horizon Worlds by misrepresenting their ages and logging in with accounts registered as adults, and that doing so violated federal privacy laws," said Kelly Stonelake, Meta whistleblower and former Horizon Worlds director of product marketing, in Fairplay's press release. "Meta had extensive knowledge of users under 13 accessing the platform and failed to take appropriate measures to comply with COPPA. Rather than delete the accounts of users under 13, whose data Meta did not have parental permission to collect, the company instructed employees not to document the very obvious presence of children on the platform.”
The FTC didn't comment.