Recently I received an email from SuperAwesome. It turns out my son needed my permission for his Among Us game account. Now I am glad that someone reached out to gain my permission. I am also glad that my son was honest about his birthday (my son is a good kid). So, I read over the email and authorized the permissions that I wanted to grant. Now this company wanted the last four of my social security number or a credit card to verify my age. This piqued my interest in this company so I started to research them online. I had never heard of verifying an age this way. Most of my son’s games just asked me to solve a math problem or just plain used the honor system. So I found this….well, we will just say different.
What is SuperAwesome?
I Googled this company and while some of the ratings contained comments from skeptical parents not wanting to give their information, some were commending this company for their work. I checked out this website, and their mission seems noble. According to their website, they are “The #1 Parent Verification and Consent Platform in the World.” My son plays games online and I have never heard of them, but, hey…the world is a big place. Their website says are “An Epic Games Company” so Fortnite might ring a bell. They are also discussed under the Help section of the Epic Games website. Based on my research, Epic Games acquired SuperAwesome in 2020. But according to what I just recently read in 2023, SuperAwesome is acquiring most of their company back to become an independent company again with Epic Games just being an investor.
Now that I have investigated enough to believe this is a real company, let’s get into the details of this company and what they are about. SuperAwesome specializes in Gen Alpha and Gen Z. They have something called AwesomeAds that helps brands market to Gen Alpha and Gen Z. They also work with social media influencers, gaming, and parental verification and consent. Their goal is to make the internet safer and help brands comply with privacy laws and COPPA and GDPR-K.
How does SuperAwesome help with COPPA and GDPR?
COPPA is for the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 which governs online privacy requirements for children under thirteen years old in the United States. GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation for Europe and GDPR-K is the part of GDPR that regulates only privacy for children under sixteen years old. Well, I read COPPA so you don’t have to. And sure enough, websites and online services that target children under 13 in the United States must receive parental consent before collecting personal information. Personal information can be anything from their name to their IP address or cookies. The act says that they must get the parent’s permission and verify that it was the parent who gave the permission. COPPA specifies the ways that companies can verify that they are getting the parent’s permission, and placing a monetary transaction or verifying a government-issued ID are two of the ways this can be done. According to their website, SuperAwesome charges $0.50 for parents of children in the US but then the money is refunded in 8-13 business days. If your child lives outside of the US, your card is only temporarily authorized so there is no charge on your card. However, when I did it, I was only charged $0.05 and my card was credited back in one business day.
Is SuperAwesome Parent Verification Safe?
SuperAwesome KWS (Kids Web Services) aka the parent verification and consent branch of their company is certified by the kidSAFE Seal Program. The kidSAFE Seal Program is based in Arlington, Texas and its members include ABCmouse.com, Cartoon Network (mobile app and website), Peppa Pig and PJ Masks apps, Kidz Bop (website), and Roblox (app and website) just to name a few. I definitely should do a separate article for the kidSAFE Seal Program, but in summary, it is a safety certification for kid-friendly apps, websites, and other technology.
They are also certified by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) according to their website. However, I could not find the membership list for ESRB to verify like I could for the kidSAFE Seal Program. However, since kidSAFE Seal Program is approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a safe harbor program for COPPA, that is one heck of a co-sign. I don’t like the verification process, but I am not too fond of the alternative either. However, I am not sure if this verification process is the answer. I mean, kids are smart these days. There are so many workarounds like getting an older sibling or friend to do the verifying. I mean how do they know that you are that kid’s parent? And some of these kids have their own debit card. How do they know the card belongs to an adult or that it is an adult using the card? What’s to stop a predator from signing up as a child and then using his or her own credit card to verify himself? There are so many holes in this verification process. But the bottom line is, that this is the one being used if your kids are playing certain games and apps online.
My final thoughts are, that this is a fast-moving world being fueled by technology that we could only imagine when we were little watching The Jetsons and The Terminator and Back to the Future. Now some of this stuff has come to fruition and we have to be diligent about watching our kids with these technological advances, including online gaming. Back when we played video games, we went over to each other’s houses. Now the kids play with each other online in their own houses. We need to protect them. It is good to know that there are some companies out there attempting to keep children safe.