COPPA Requirement

As stated within the DareNET Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), in consideration of your use of the Service ('Service'), you represent that you are of legal age (13 and over) to use any DareNET service are not a person barred from receiving services under the laws of your country or applicable jurisdiction.

Why must I be over 13 in order to submit forms, or give information to DareNET?

You have probably seen that forms on the website (and various other pages) have started to repeatedly mention the COPPA requirement which enforces that visitors wishing to submit data to DareNET must tick a box to confirm they are 13 years of age (or over), in order to complete their submission.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ('COPPA') was signed into law (in the United States) on October 21, 1998, and became effective April 21, 2000. The main goal of the COPPA is to protect the privacy of children using the Internet. Although the actual ruling contains many key provisions, the effect is that a Web site cannot collect private and personal information from children under 13 years of age. This includes first name, surname, home address, e-mail address, telephone number, social security number, or any other contact information wihout parental consent beforehand. Because we have servers based in the United States, and because we cannot comply with this requirement, we must have you state by clicking this box stating that you are at least 13 years old.

If you are not 13 years of age, you are unfortunately unable to use our services until you are 13 years of age (or older).

More information can be found at the COPPA site (external) or by contacting our Support Team at support[at]darenet.org.