10/6/2015

WASHINGTON, DC – LexisNexis® Risk Solutions and ISAFE Inc. announced today that LexisNexis’ identity management solutions will be integrated into ISAFE’s market leading school-enabled, cloud-based parental permissions platform, an advance which greatly simplifies  organizations’ compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA), while removing long term costs and complexity for schools.

By using identity analytics and advanced linking technology from LexisNexis, ISAFE’s platform binds a known parent or guardian to a specific child through school district verified information, and can then authenticate a parent or guardian’s permissions for school and online activity. This is critical as government agencies, schools, non-profit organizations and commercial entities increasingly have made educational information and services available online and via mobile applications, and compliance with COPPA has become a growing challenge. Since COPPA was passed in 1998, the Federal Trade Commission has issued over $5 million in fines to U.S. companies.

“By joining forces, LexisNexis and ISAFE are able to offer an integrated and seamless solution that benefits organizations that interact with parents online and – more importantly – helps to protect children’s identities online,” said Haywood Talcove, CEO, Government, LexisNexis. “The key is that we are combining the expertise and technology of ISAFE Inc.’s cloud-based infrastructure already supporting more than 34 million students in the U.S. with the public records data, analytics and advanced linking technology from LexisNexis. This combination of technology, expertise and identity analytics has enabled us to create a growing COPPA-compliant database that can be searched – instantaneously expediting the process of verifying parental consent and enabling organizations to meet the requirements of COPPA simply.”

The platform is a safeguard against identity theft and identity fraud because it does not require parents to share their personal identification information as part of the authentication process. Child identity theft and identity fraud are growing problems. According to a 2012 report by the Identity Theft Assistance Center, one in 40 households with minor children are impacted by these crimes.

“Binding a parent’s authenticated identity to a child helps organizations verify parental consent for use of valuable educational assets and activities that are increasingly part of academics,” said Teri Schroeder, CEO, ISAFE, Inc. “We meet the requirements of COPPA, while simplifying parents’ ability to protect their family’s privacy. It benefits everyone’s needs while enforcing the very important intentions of this law.” 

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis^® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data, sophisticated analytics platforms and technology solutions to provide insights that help businesses across multiple industries and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions and RELX.