WW International (formerly Weight Watchers) and its subsidiary Kurbo were fined USD 1.5 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for illegally collecting personal data from children under 13 without parental consent.

The companies marketed a weight loss app to children as young as eight and failed to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), according to the FTC.

Hundreds of children were able to sign up to use Kurbo using false birthdays without parental permission and could then change their ages once they had registered. 

Kurbo also failed to inform parents about its data collection practices for kids, and kept the data for many years, possibly to help develop other services. 

The FTC ordered WW International (aka Weight Watchers) to 'destroy any algorithms derived from the data', and to pay a USD 1.5 million penalty.