US regulators have accused Weight Watchers of using a diet app to illegally gather information on children as young as eight years old, including their names, email addresses and birth dates, without their parents’ consent.
A complaint, filed on Friday by the justice department on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, said that Weight Watchers and its subsidiary Kurbo – a kids’ weight management platform – violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, which requires parental consent for the collection or use of any personal information of users under the age of 13 years old.
