In This Update:
- Advocates Push Wyden Legislation
- California Legislation Amended
Senate Hearing Coming on Bill to Restrict Children's
Lists
Advocacy groups and top lawmakers continue to promote
the Children's Listbroker Privacy
Act (S. 2160), and an aide to
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), one
of the bill's cosponsor, now
says there will be a hearing "sometime before October" on
the legislation. The legislation
prohibits the sale or transfer
of lists of children under the
age of 16 without first getting
parental consent. The bill would effectively
eliminate essential sources of
quality lists for nearly all organizations
that provide information to children
and families.
The hearing would be held by the Committee on Commerce, Science
and Transportation, on which the bill's chief author,
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), serves and Senator
Stevens is the number two Republican. The hearing is certain
to feature testimony from advocacy groups who are increasingly pushing
lawmakers to restrict marketing to children.
An April 28 feature story in The Christian Science
Monitor focused on the Wyden
bill and other moves to "combat
commercial influences" on children. It noted that, "With
Spending soaring and product-hawking
venues burgeoning far beyond TV,
many parents, educators, and other
concerned citizens are becoming
fed up by what they consider a
rampant assault of commercialism
on children. . . .adults are becoming activists . . . so they can
be better heard on the national stage and especially by lawmakers."
The article listed several advocacy groups that
are weighing in on these issues,
including the Motherhood Project,
Citizen's Campaign for Commercial
Free Schools, the Coalition to
Stop Commercial Exploitation
of Children, Dads and Daughters, and, "perhaps
the leader of the pack," Commercial Alert, which is based in
Wyden's state.
Children's Provisions Temporarily Withdrawn from California Bill
At least a temporary victory may have been won as Senator
Liz Figueroa removed the children's list provisions from
legislation in order to keep the bill moving through the California
Legislature. On Tuesday, a California Senate panel approved SB
1633, the Children's Information and Consumer's Medical Information Privacy
Protection Act, but the pared down bill now only focuses on medical
privacy, restricting the use of a consumer's medical information
for direct marketing purposes without
the consumer's prior written consent.
According a Senate Judiciary Committee report Senator
Figueroa wanted to focus on the
medical privacy provisions first,
but that the part of the bill
that would restrict children's
list was only set-aside "for the time being," which
means that the author can resurrect
them later in the process. It
is unclear when she might return
to her assault on information about
children.
The legislation was an extreme and sweeping "opt-in" measure,
preventing the use of personally
identifiable information of a
child under the age of 18 without
prior parental consent. As California
Legislature's most avid advocate
of new privacy-related laws, Senator Figueroa is expected to return
to her focus on children in the future.
For more information, copies of the
bills, or additional analysis write info@kidsintheknow.org,
visit www.kidsintheknow.org,
or call Michael Fleischer at 202/667-0901.
