I
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 369
To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the sale of personal
information about children without their parents’ consent, and for other
purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY 19, 1999
Mr. FRANKS of New Jersey introduced the following bill; which was referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the sale
of personal information about children without their par-
ents’ consent, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Children’s Privacy Pro-
tection and Parental Empowerment Act of 1999’’.
SEC. 2. PROHIBITION OF CERTAIN ACTIVITIES RELATING
TO PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT CHIL-
DREN.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Chapter 89 of title 18, United
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the follow-
ing:
‘‘§ 1822. Sale of personal information about children
‘‘(a) Whoever, in or affecting interstate or foreign
commerce, being a list broker, knowingly—
‘‘(1) sells, purchases, or receives remuneration
for providing personal information about a child,
knowing that such information pertains to a child,
without the written consent of a parent of that child;
‘‘(2) conditions any sale or service to a child or
to that child’s parent on the granting of such a con-
sent; or
‘‘(3) fails to comply with the request of a
parent—
‘‘(A) to disclose the source of personal in-
formation offered for sale or remuneration by
the list broker about that parent’s child;
‘‘(B) to disclose all information that has
been sold or otherwise disclosed by that list
broker about that child;
‘‘(C) to disclose the identity of all persons
to whom the list broker has sold or otherwise
disclosed personal information about that child;
or
‘‘(D) to discontinue providing personal in-
formation to third parties about that parent’s
child;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more
than 1 year, or both.
‘‘(b) Whoever, in or affecting interstate or foreign
commerce, being a person who uses, in the course of com-
merce, any personal information about a child under age
16, that was obtained for commercial purposes, to contact
that child or a parent of that child to offer a commercial
product or service to that child, knowingly fails to comply
with the request of a parent—
‘‘(1) to disclose the source of personal informa-
tion about that parent’s child;
‘‘(2) to disclose all information that has been
sold or otherwise disclosed by that list broker about
that child;
‘‘(3) to disclose the identity of all persons to
whom personal information about that child has
been disclosed; or
‘‘(4) to discontinue providing personal informa-
tion to third parties about that parent’s child;
shall be fined not more than $5,000.
a prevailing plaintiff in a civil action under this subsection
a reasonable attorney’s fee as a part of the costs.
‘‘(f) Nothing in this section affects the sale of lists
to—
‘‘(1) the National Center for Missing and Ex-
ploited Children;
‘‘(2) accredited colleges, universities, and other
institutions of higher learning;
‘‘(3) the United States military; or
‘‘(4) local, State, or Federal law enforcement
agencies.
‘‘(g) It shall be the duty of each list broker operating
in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce to make
that broker’s databases available twice annually, without
charge, to the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children, established under section 404(b) of the Missing
Children’s Assistance Act, in order to allow the Center to
match it with the database of missing children held by
the Center.
‘‘(h) As used in this section—
‘‘(1) the term ‘child’ means a person who has
not attained the age of 16 years;
‘‘(2) the term ‘parent’ includes a legal guard-
ian;
‘‘(3) the term ‘personal information’ means in-
formation (including name, address, telephone num-
ber, social security number, electronic mail address,
and physical description) about an individual identi-
fied as a child, that would suffice to locate and con-
tact that individual; and
‘‘(4) the term ‘list broker’ means a person who
provides for remuneration mailing lists, computer-
ized or telephone reference services, databases, or
the like, containing personal information about chil-
dren.’’.
(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections
at the beginning of chapter 89 of title 18, United States
Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new
item:
‘‘1822. Sale of personal information about children.’’.
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