COPPA 15 U.S.C. §§6504-6505
Record COPPA enforcement authority and dated penalty context without inventing liability or recordkeeping requirements
Where this comes from
Provision: 15 U.S.C. §§6504-6505; 16 CFR §1.98 - Enforcement authority and dated penalty context
Instrument: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
Citation: 15 U.S.C. §§6504, 6505; 15 U.S.C. §45(m)(1)(A); 16 CFR §1.98(d)
Text version: 16 CFR 1.98(d), eCFR through 2026-09-03; schedule for penalties assessed after 2025-01-17. 15 USC 6504/6505, House preliminary text through 2026-09-01 / 2026-09-05 respectively.
Checked against the source: 6 September 2026
Who it applies to
It applies when all of these are true:
- COPPA assessed activity Q_COPPA_COVERED_ACTIVITY: YES
What engineering work it implies
Sample acceptance criteria Landfall generates for this obligation:
- Identify the activity and applicable FTC or agency-specific statutory authority with a qualified reviewer; lack of FTC jurisdiction alone is not a COPPA exemption.
- Verify the current 1.98(d) schedule and penalty assessment date. The checked $53,088 maximum applies to assessments after 17 January 2025, including earlier violations; it is not a newly verified 2026 adjustment.
- Record liability conditions, remedies and unresolved questions; task applicability is not a violation finding and this is not a liability calculation or a child-user multiplier.
- Preserve the separate 6504 state-action threshold, federal-court remedies, notice/intervention rules and pending Commission-action limitation; do not treat the FTC amount as every state's penalty.
- Record a source-change/reliance review owner and minimized source references; this workflow does not impose a blanket duty to retain all child or consent records.
Evidence an auditor expects
- Assessment documentDocument review
Dated enforcement-context register
Identify the activity and applicable FTC or agency-specific statutory authority with a qualified reviewer; lack of FTC jurisdiction alone is not a COPPA exemption. Verify the current 1.98(d) schedule and penalty assessment date. The checked $53,088 maximum applies to assessments after 17 January 2025, including earlier violations; it is not a newly verified 2026 adjustment. Record liability conditions, remedies and unresolved questions; task applicability is not a violation finding and this is not a liability calculation or a child-user multiplier. Preserve the separate 6504 state-action threshold, federal-court remedies, notice/intervention rules and pending Commission-action limitation; do not treat the FTC amount as every state's penalty. Record a source-change/reliance review owner and minimized source references; this workflow does not impose a blanket duty to retain all child or consent records. Keep dated schedule history separate from the current register entry; qualified review and controlled evidence are required, not legal approval by the tool. Completion is not legal approval.
Questions people ask
- Does COPPA 15 U.S.C. §§6504-6505 apply to my service?
- It applies when COPPA assessed activity Q_COPPA_COVERED_ACTIVITY: YES.
- From when does this apply?
- COPPA 15 U.S.C. §§6504-6505 applies from 21 April 2000. Its current status is: in force.
- What evidence does an auditor expect?
- Dated enforcement-context register.
Find out whether this one lands on you
Landfall's pre-scan answers the applicability question above for your product in minutes, then turns every obligation that applies into traceable engineering tickets with a citation chain your auditors can follow.
Not legal advice. Landfall maps regulatory obligations to engineering work for planning purposes. Its verdicts are not legal advice and create no attorney-client relationship — verify with qualified counsel before relying on them.