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i-Dressup Shuts Down in Wake of Privacy Breach and COPPA Violation

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By CARU Staff


I-Dressup, a fashion-themed social website for teens, has completely shut down as part of a settlement with the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs, following a massive privacy breach and violations of the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and New Jersey state law. In September 2016, a hacker sent 2.2 million i-Dressup account credentials to technology blog Arstechnica as well as to haveibeenpwned.com, a searchable online database of data breaches.

Responding to the news, New Jersey investigators discovered that 2,519 of the compromised accounts belonged to New Jersey children below age 13. I-Dressup, allegedly aware that it had child users, had violated COPPA by failing to obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting and processing personal information from the children, including first and last names and email addresses. In a consent decree with the New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Gerwal, parent company Unixiz has closed i-Dressup, agreed to reform its business practices pursuant to COPPA and state laws, and will pay penalties to be calculated in light of Unixuz's compliance with the decree over the next two years.

The New Jersey Attorney General's press release, including a link to the full consent decree, is here.
To learn more, visit App, a New Jersey-centric news site, or Arstechnica.
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