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   iOS 7 to Remove Major Education Roadblock

   Josh Centers

   The [1]Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was passed in
   1998 to protect children online, but the result has often been that
   children under 13 years of age are excluded from online services.
   Service providers are required to receive parental consent for children
   under 13 in order to collect their personal information, but the it's
   often not worth the effort, so many providers, such as Facebook, ban
   them entirely.

   As Adam Engst previously detailed in '[2]How COPPA Teaches Children to
   Lie' (15 November 2011), this legislation and its unintended
   consequences has been a huge roadblock to computing in education,
   forcing children and parents to falsify age data to access useful
   services. Unfortunately, schools can't get away with breaking the law
   so blatantly, so Apple services such as iTunes U and iCloud have been
   off-limits to elementary and middle-school classes where children are
   under 13, despite heavy adoption of the iPad in those schools.

   Fortunately, education expert [3]Bradley Chambers has discovered a
   solution that Apple is promising for iOS 7. [4]Apple's education page
   for iOS 7 includes this tidbit:

     Students with Apple ID can have an enhanced personal experience with
     access to great online services like iTunes U, iCloud backup, and
     the ability to receive licenses in the new Volume Purchase Program.
     And now schools will have a program to facilitate Apple obtaining
     verifiable parental consent for personal Apple IDs for students
     under age 13.

   This is fantastic news for educators, and being able to use iTunes U
   content in schools could be a game changer at many different levels. As
   Chambers said, 'this is a very big deal.'

References

   1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act
   2. http://tidbits.com/article/12622
   3. http://chambersdaily.com/bradleychambers/2013/6/25/copa-and-apple
   4. http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/education/

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