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Child Identity Records and Online Privacy Controls

This guide presents selected U.S. government consumer education from Federal Trade Commission. References to “we” or “us” in the source material refer to the issuing agency. Source dates and links appear below.

How To Protect Your Child From Identity Theft

Learn how to protect your child’s personal information and what to do if someone steals your child’s identity.

What Is Child Identity Theft?

Child identity theft happens when someone uses a child’s sensitive personal information to get services or benefits, or to commit fraud. They might use your child’s Social Security number, name and address, or date of birth. They could use the stolen information to

  • apply for government benefits, like health care coverage or nutrition assistance
  • open a bank or credit card account
  • apply for a loan
  • sign up for a utility service, like water or electricity
  • rent a place to live

How To Protect Your Child’s Personal Information

Here’s how to protect your child from identity theft.

Ask questions before giving anyone your child’s Social Security number

If your child’s school asks for your child’s Social Security number, ask these questions:

  1. Why do you need it?
  2. How will you protect it?
  3. Can you use a different identifier?
  4. Can you use just the last four digits of the Social Security number?

Protect documents with personal information

If you have documents with your child’s personal information, like medical bills or their Social Security card, keep them in a safe place, like a locked file cabinet.

When you decide to get rid of those documents, shred them before you throw them away. If you don’t have a shredder, look for a local shred day.

Delete personal information before disposing of a computer or cell phone

Your computer and phone might have stored personal information about your child. Always delete personal information before you get rid of a computer or a cell phone.

Freeze your child's credit

If your child is under 16, request a free credit freeze to make it harder for someone to open new accounts in your child's name. The freeze stays in place until you tell the credit bureaus to remove it. The process for getting a freeze for a minor is different than getting one for an adult. The credit bureaus give specific instructions at these three sites:

How To Know if Someone Is Using Your Child’s Personal Information

Keep an eye out for warning signs that someone is using your child’s personal information. Here are a few:

  • Someone contacts you about your child’s overdue bill, but it’s not an account you opened.
  • You’re denied government benefits (like health care coverage or nutrition assistance) because someone is already using your child’s Social Security number to get those benefits.
  • You get a letter from the IRS about unpaid income taxes for your child. This could happen if someone used your child’s Social Security number on tax forms for a new job.
  • Your child is denied a student loan because your child has bad credit. This could happen if someone used your child’s Social Security number to get a credit card, open a cell phone account, or set up a utility service and hasn’t paid the bills on time or at all.

Check if your child has a credit report

A good way to find out if someone is using your child’s information to commit fraud is to check if your child has a credit report. Generally, a child under 18 won’t have one. To check, contact the three credit bureaus (find their contact information at IdentityTheft.gov) and ask for a manual search for your child's Social Security number. You may have to give the credit bureaus a copy of

  • your driver’s license or other government-issued identification card
  • proof of your address, like a utility bill, or a credit card or insurance statement
  • your child’s birth certificate
  • your child’s Social Security card

If you’re not the child’s parent, you may have to give the credit bureaus a copy of documents that prove you’re the child’s legal guardian.

What To Do if Someone Is Using Your Child’s Personal Information

If you discover that someone is using your child’s personal information, here’s what to do right away:

Step 1: Report and close the fraudulent accounts

Contact the companies where fraud happened. Tell each company’s fraud department that someone opened an account using your child’s information and ask them to close the account. Ask for written confirmation that says that your child isn’t responsible for the account.

Contact the three credit bureaus. Tell each credit bureau that someone opened an account using your child’s information. Ask them to remove any fraudulent accounts from your child’s credit report.

Step 2: Freeze your child’s credit report

If your child is under 16, request a free credit freeze, to make it harder for someone to open new accounts in your child's name. The freeze stays in place until you tell the credit bureaus to remove it. (Minors who are 16 or 17 may request and remove a security freeze themselves.)

To activate a credit freeze, contact each of the three credit bureaus. Find their contact information at IdentityTheft.gov.

Step 3: Report child identity theft

Report child identity theft to the FTC at IdentityTheft.gov. Include as many details as possible.

Protecting Your Child’s Privacy Online

As a parent, you have control over the personal information companies collect online from your kids under 13. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act gives you tools to do that. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule. If a site or service is covered by COPPA, it has to get your consent before collecting personal information from your child, and it has to honor your choices about how that information is used.

What is COPPA?  

The COPPA Rule was put in place to protect kids’ personal information on websites and online services — including apps — that are directed to children under 13. The Rule also applies to a general audience site that knows it’s collecting personal information from kids that age. 

The COPPA Rule requires those sites and services to notify parents directly and get their approval before they collect, use, or disclose a child’s personal information. Personal information in the world of the COPPA Rule includes a kid’s full name, address, phone number or email address; their physical location; photos, videos and audio recordings of the child; government identifiers like a Social Security number; biometric identifiers; and persistent identifiers, like IP addresses, that can be used to track a child’s activities over time and across different websites and online services.

Does COPPA affect the sites and services my kids use?

If the site or service doesn’t collect your child’s personal information, COPPA is not a factor. COPPA kicks in only when sites covered by the Rule collect personal information from your kids. Practically speaking, COPPA puts you in charge of your child’s personal information.

How does COPPA work?

COPPA works like this: Let’s say your children want to use features on a site or download an app that collects their personal information. Before they can, you should get a plain language notice about what information the site will collect, how it will use it, and how you can provide your consent. For example, you may get an email from a company letting you know your child has started the process for signing up for a site or service that requires your child to give personal information. Or you may get that notice on the screen where you can consent to the collection of your child’s personal information.

The notice should link to a privacy policy that’s also plain to read — and in language that’s easy to understand. The privacy policy must give details about the kind of information the site collects, and what it might do with the information — say, if it plans to use the information to target advertising to a child or give or sell the information to other companies. In addition, the policy should state how to contact someone who can answer your questions.

That notice also should have directions on how to give your consent. Sites and services have some flexibility in how to do that. For example, some may ask you to verify your identity using government-issued identification. Others may have a toll-free number you can call.

If you agree to let the site or service collect personal information from your child, it has a legal obligation to keep it secure.   

What are my choices?

The first choice is whether you’re comfortable with the site’s information practices. Start by reading how the company plans to use your child’s information. 

Then, it’s about how much consent you want to give. For example, you might give the company permission to collect your child’s personal information, but still have the right to prevent the company from disclosing that information to others. 

Once you give a site or service permission to collect personal information from your child, you’re still in control. As the parent, you have the right to review the information collected about your child. If you ask to see the information, keep in mind that website operators need to make sure you are the parent before providing you access. You also have the right to retract your consent any time, and to have any information collected about your child deleted.

What if it looks like a site or service is breaking the rules? 

If you think a site has collected information from your kids or marketed to them in a way that violates the law, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Sources and publication details

The federal agency source text is U.S. government work in the public domain. Fynoptic selected, adapted, and formatted it for this guide. No agency endorsement is implied. Follow the linked sources for current program details and the rules applicable to your circumstances.

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