• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 11, 2025

Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate allegations by the advocacy group Fairplay, which accused Meta Platforms of knowingly collecting personal information from children using the virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds.

Fairplay on Thursday alleged in a petition seeking an FTC probe that Meta was violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by knowingly collecting personal data from Horizon World users under 13, without parental consent.

That petition “raises serious and troubling allegations,” Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Representative Kathy Castor (D-Florida) say in a letter to FTC chair Andrew Ferguson.

The lawmakers write that Meta “appears to have blatantly violated” the children's privacy law, adding that the amount of data collected from virtual reality users – including biometric data such as facial expressions – “renders these allegations especially concerning.”

Fairplay alleged that it determined through a “multi-pronged investigation” that children under 13 were accessing Horizon Worlds with standard accounts, as opposed to Meta's “child accounts,” created for children between 10 and 12.

“Fairplay researchers spent substantial time on the platform using the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 2 VR headsets, and used voice data recorded from live gameplay to establish that at least 33% of users encountered in Horizon Worlds’ are children under the age of 13, and that these users are accessing the platform with standard accounts,” the group alleges.

Fairplay's petition included a sworn statement from Kelly Stonelake, former director of product marketing at Meta, who alleged it was “widely known” that children were using Horizon Worlds.

“When I worked at Horizon Worlds, it was a widely known issue that children (including users under the age of 13) were accessing Horizon Worlds by misrepresenting their ages, logging in with accounts registered as adults, thereby bypassing age-related restrictions,” Stonelake stated.

Meta spokesperson Stephanie Otway said the company is “committed to providing safe, age-appropriate experiences” on its platform.

“Parents are required to manage accounts for pre-teens 10-12 on Quest, and grant permission for them to access Horizon Worlds,” Otway said, adding that the company offers tools that allow anyone to report suspected underage accounts.

“If we become aware of a pre-teen using an account meant for someone 13 or older, we'll take steps to ensure they're in the right experience. This includes requiring proof of age, switching to a parent-managed account, or deleting the account altogether,” Otway added.