Passport for Kids

US users with children younger than 13 can create special Microsoft .NET Passport accounts to control the level of information that Kids Passport–participating Web sites can collect from the children. Users can visit the Kids Passport Web site to create Kids Passport accounts under a user's .NET Passport account. To create the Kids Passport account, the parent provides a sign-in name and password for the child, as well as basic information such as the child’s state of residence and birth date. The parent also specifies whether Kids Passport can release the child’s email address or other personal information. After creating the Kids Passport account, a parent must sign in to the original user's .NET Passport account and provide a valid credit card number, which .NET Passport uses to verify that the parent is an adult. (.NET Passport makes no charges to the credit card and immediately deletes the information after verification.)

The first time a child signs in to the Kids Passport account, the parent must be present to choose which Kids Passport–participating sites the child can access through the Kids Passport account. For each permitted site, the parent specifies a consent level: full, limited, or deny. The full level lets participating Web sites collect and use the information the parent specified during account creation (i.e., email address or other personal information) as well as information the site collects from the child and lets the site disclose that information to third parties. The limited level lets the Web site collect and use the information but not disclose it to others. The deny level refuses the site permission to collect any information from the child; participating sites often refuse the child any level of access when this setting is in effect. Regardless of access level, a child can't use the Kids Passport account to access the parent’s .NET Passport account or wallet.

The Kids Passport server saves the approved Web site names and parental consent level in a site list in the Kids Passport account. The parent can read a site’s privacy policy, edit a site’s consent level, revoke consent for a site, or give consent for a new site at any time. When the child signs in to a participating Web site, the site uses the parental consent information in the Kids Passport account to determine whether to give the child access and how to gather and use the child's information. When the child wants to access a participating site that the parent has denied access to or hasn’t yet approved, the child can ask Kids Passport to send the parent an email requesting the parent to sign in and grant access.

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