The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that Meta has received more than 1.1 million reports of users younger than 13 on its Instagram platform since early 2019, yet it "disabled only a fraction" of those accounts, says a legal complaint against Meta brought by the attorneys-general of 33 states. A New York Times dispatch to The Globe reports that instead, Meta "routinely continued to collect" children's personal information, without parental permission, in violation of a federal children's privacy law, according to the court filing. Meta could face hundreds of millions of dollars, or more, in civil penalties should the states prove the allegations. "Within the company, Meta's actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users are under the age of 13 is an open secret that is routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed," the complaint said, "and zealously protected from disclosure to the public." The privacy charges are part of a larger federal lawsuit, filed by California, Colorado and 31 other states in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It accuses Meta of unfairly ensnaring young people on its platforms while concealing internal studies showing user harms.