COPPA and Your Kid's Data: How Tekku Is Different
If you're a parent evaluating AI tools for your kid, data privacy should be near the top of your list. Most AI products were built for adults and bolted on age restrictions later. Tekku was designed for kids ages 10 to 13 from day one, and that decision shapes everything about how we handle data.
COPPA — the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act — sets the legal baseline for how companies must treat data from children under 13. But we think the baseline isn't enough. Here's what COPPA requires and what Tekku does beyond it. COPPA requires verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from kids under 13. Tekku requires a parent account to create a child account. No exceptions, no workarounds, no "just enter your birthday" loopholes. A real parent or guardian has to set up access.
What we collect: the minimum needed to make the product work. A display name for the kid (doesn't have to be their real name), their age range, their mission completions, and their Builder DNA trait data. That's it. We don't collect location data, we don't build behavioral advertising profiles, we don't sell or share data with third-party advertisers. Period. The builder trait data exists to show kids and parents their growth over time. It lives in your account and nowhere else.
What we explicitly don't do: no tracking cookies for advertising. No third-party analytics that follow your kid around the web. No facial recognition. No voice recording. No data sharing with advertisers or data brokers. The AI interactions are processed for the purpose of the mission and the builder trait analysis. They're not training data for a foundation model. Your kid's conversations aren't making someone else's AI smarter.
Parent controls are real, not decorative. Parents can view their kid's complete activity history. Parents can export all data associated with their child's account. Parents can delete their child's account and all associated data, and we actually delete it — not "mark it inactive" or "archive it," but delete it. These aren't buried in a settings menu. They're in the parent dashboard, clearly labeled, and they work immediately.
We know trust is earned, not claimed. So we'll keep being transparent about what we do with data, and we'll keep doing less with it than the law requires. Your kid's builder identity belongs to them. Their data belongs to your family. That's how it should be.