[20180108]LSB10051_1998年《智能玩具和儿童在线隐私保护法案》.pdf

CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Smart Toys and the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 January 8, 2018 A growing number of devices in American households, including televisions, appliances, security systems, and heating and cooling devices, rely on Internet connectivity to perform a range of functions. And the “Internet of Things” includes a growing number of products primarily used by children, including “smart toys.” In the 1980s, the popular Teddy Ruxpin bear “talked” to children by way of a tape player hidden inside. Today, children may have real-time two-way “conversations” with their smart toys. Sensors, mics, cameras, storage devices, speech recognition technology, Internet-connectivity, and GPS are used to tailor the toys behaviors based on the childs interactions. Some more sophisticated smart toys may record a childs voice on an audio file, convert the audio to text, query a searchable database, and return an appropriate voice response back to the child. But smart toys use of Internet-connectivity potentially to collect childrens personal information may require the toys makers to take certain steps to