UK’s Age-Appropriate Design Code to come into force on 2 September 2021

The Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) is coming into force on 2 September, in the UK. The Age-Appropriate Design Code seeks to protect children within the digital world, meaning publishers and advertisers need to adopt risk-based approaches on people’s data.

Age-Appropriate Design Code is GDPR getting specific, covering apps, programs, connected toys and devices, search engines, social media platforms, streaming services, online games, news or educational websites and websites offering other goods or services to users over the internet.

Advertisers and publishers can’t disclose children’s data and ICO is asking publishers and advertisers to establish the age of the users or apply the ‘high privacy’ by default to all users.

Google this month recommended publishers to work with legal advisors to determine whether AADC is applicable to their business and, if so, how to comply. Google has a tag for users under the age of consent (TFUA), a way that publishers can disable personalized advertising, including remarketing, for specific ad requests.