Roku has illegally collected personal information of children without the required notice and without obtaining parental consent, the Michigan attorney general alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. In a statement, Roku said it “strongly disagrees” with the “inaccurate claims” in the lawsuit.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed the lawsuit against Roku in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The suit alleges that the streaming platform company violates the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the Michigan Consumer Protection Act.
“Roku has blatantly violated children’s privacy laws, illegally exposing kids across Michigan to invasive data collection practices,” Nessel, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We cannot allow companies to jeopardize the security of our children’s personal information. My office remains committed to holding accountable companies that violate the rights of Michigan families and seek to profit at the expense of children’s safety and privacy.”
Roku said it will challenge the lawsuit. “Roku strongly disagrees with the allegations in today’s filing, which do not reflect how our services work or our efforts to protect viewer privacy,” the company said. “We plan to challenge these inaccurate claims and look forward to demonstrating our commitment to trust and compliance.”
The company’s statement continued, “Roku respects and values the privacy of our users. We do not use or disclose children’s personal information for targeted advertising or any other purpose prohibited by law, nor do we partner with third-party web trackers or data brokers to sell children’s personal information. We take the responsibility of creating a safe and trusted online environment seriously. Our viewers rely on Roku for engaging content, and we take pride in connecting our viewers to the streaming content they love every day.”
According to the Michigan AG’s lawsuit, Roku (unlike some competitors) does not offer parents the option to create children’s profiles, “subjecting both parents and children to many of the same data collection practices.”
The lawsuit alleges that Roku systematically collects, processes and discloses the personal information of children, including their locations, voice recordings, IP addresses and persistent identifiers that track children’s browsing histories on Roku and across the internet. All of these are categories of personal information protected under COPPA, according to the Michigan AG’s office.
The lawsuit further alleges that Roku enables third-party channels to collect children’s personal information to “attract content providers to its platform and increase advertising revenue.” In addition, Roku is alleged to have enhanced its collection and monetization of children’s personal information through partnerships with third-party web trackers and data brokers, “some of which have been sued by the FTC for tracking individuals’ locations,” according to the Michigan attorney general.
Roku also “actively misleads parents about its collection of their children’s personal information, and it sows confusion about parents’ rights to protect their children’s personal information,” the lawsuit alleges.
The attorney general’s lawsuit seeks “to stop Roku’s alleged illegal data collection and disclosure practices, to require Roku to comply with federal and state law, and to recover damages, restitution, and civil penalties for Roku’s years of alleged misconduct,” according to the Michigan AG.
A copy of the lawsuit is available at this link.
