{"id":100301,"date":"2018-04-24T20:58:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T20:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=100301"},"modified":"2025-07-01T23:31:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T06:31:46","slug":"more-than-3000-apps-have-been-spying-on-children-without-parental-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/more-than-3000-apps-have-been-spying-on-children-without-parental-consent\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 3,000 apps have been spying on children without parental consent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Security experts at the International Computer Science Institute discovered something upsetting<\/a> among more than 5,800 popular apps for kids. More than half – 57 percent<\/strong> – spy on kids without their parents\u2019 knowledge. <\/strong><\/span>Some of these apps are familiar: Where\u2019s my Water?, Minion Rush, and even Duolingo, the learning app most used by young people.<\/b><\/p>\n

“We identified several concerning violations and trends: clear violations when apps share location or contact information without consent (4.8 percent), <\/span>sharing of personal information without applying reasonable security measures (40 percent), <\/b>potential non-compliance by sharing persistent identifiers with third parties for prohibited purposes (18.8 percent), and ignorance or disregard for contractual obligations aimed at protecting children\u2019s privacy (39 percent).” <\/span><\/p>\n

The results, summarized as a <\/span>\u201cmarket failure\u201d<\/b> by the investigative team, have to do with Android versions: it\u2019s unknown if the apps also violate privacy on iOS. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we cannot know the true number of children\u2019s apps in the Play Store, <\/span>we believe that our results are representative,<\/b> given that the apps that we examined represent the most popular free ones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The report explains that, unfortunately, t<\/strong><\/span>here\u2019s no easy way for parents to protect their kids, <\/b>since practices carried out by companies are subtle and obscure, thus difficult to detect. <\/span><\/p>\n

Google has worked to ensure that app developers for young people comply with laws protecting children\u2019s data. <\/span>“However, as our results show, there appears to not be any (or only limited) enforcement.\u201d <\/b>The study suggests that it wouldn’<\/span>t be too difficult for Google to increase the search for apps violating children\u2019s privacy protection laws. <\/span><\/p>\n

In response to the study, Disney, Gameloft, and Google released statements<\/strong> saying that the protection of children’s rights is important to them and they have committed themselves to investigate further.<\/p>\n

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Security experts at the International Computer Science Institute discovered something upsetting among more than 5,800 popular apps for kids. More than half – 57 percent – spy on kids without their parents\u2019 knowledge. Some of these apps are familiar: Where\u2019s my Water?, Minion Rush, and even Duolingo, the learning app most used by young people. … Continue reading “More than 3,000 apps have been spying on children without parental consent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2057,"featured_media":100308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-100301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328043,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100301\/revisions\/328043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100301"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=100301"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=100301"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=100301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}