Technically, Facebook users must be 13 or older; but the truth is, lots of folks who use the ubiquitous social networking site are younger—sometimes much younger. These young rule-breakers often are aided and abetted by their parents. According to a recent study from the University of Illinois/Chicago, about 82 percent of parents of 12-year-olds said they knew their kids had Facebook accounts. As the age of the child went down, parental awareness actually went up: 95 percent of the parents of 10-year-olds said they knew their child had an account. Of that group, 78 percent of parents actually helped their kids get on Facebook. In other words, parents were helping their children circumvent Facebook’s rules—rules initially designed to help protect those kids. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires sites such as Facebook to put age restrictions on sites, which are designed to keep companies from gathering data from underage children. Because so many kids are on the sites anyway, Facebook and others still are collecting data from them without parental permission. “With deception being the only means of access, these possibilities for discussion, collaboration and learning are hindered,” write researchers. This results in a worst-case scenario in where none of COPPA’s public policy goals for mediating children’s interactions with these websites are met.” (Time)