Android apps secretly collect data about YOUR kids: Parents issued Play Store warning

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Alert parents to Android apps for kids in Google Play Store (Image: GETTY)

According to new research, as many as one in five Android apps aimed at kids on the Google Play Store don’t comply with data collection regulations. The survey found that about 20 percent of the top 500 Android apps for kids on the Google Play Store collect data that likely violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The affected Android apps have been downloaded 492 million times from the Google Play Store.

The research was conducted by Compareitech, who said 101 Android apps for kids on the Google Play Store have privacy policies that “suggest” COPPA violations.

COPPA is imposed by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and applies to apps, services and websites targeting children under the age of 13.

According to the study, the majority of Android apps likely to violate privacy rules collected data but did not include a child-specific section.

This means that data from children can be collected in the same way as adults.

Researchers said, “A separate section should be included on how the developers ensure the safety of children. If the app didn’t collect any data at all, it wouldn’t be necessary.”

READ MORE: The Popular Android App Could Have Uncovered Your Web Searches and Texts

The study also found that even if parents keep a close eye on what apps their kids are using, they can still download an Android app that may be violating privacy rules.

That’s because half of the apps that could violate COPPA regulations have a “Educator Approved” badge in the Google Play Store.

The Compareitech study said, “274 of the apps we reviewed had received this teacher-approved check mark, and 50 of these (18%) were found to violate COPPA guidelines. This means that the apps and their privacy policies have been reviewed by two layers have gone through assessment and have still passed quality control despite being inconsistent with COPPA standards.”

The survey also found that nine percent of the apps analyzed place the responsibility on parents or children, asking children not to submit personal information (PI) or asking parents to monitor their children’s app usage.

Android apps that collect data from children warn

A new study has looked at the data popular children’s apps collect (Image: GOOGLE)

It read: “Apps must ask for parental consent from the start if they want to collect PI (they should not expect parents to investigate this themselves, and they should certainly not expect children to read the privacy policy before submitting data).”

Comparitech used a number of different criteria to see if Android apps for kids violate COPPA.

This included verifying that there was a clear and comprehensive online privacy policy outlining the practices for collecting PI from children under the age of 13.

According to COPPA, PI contains a first and last name, physical address, online contact information, telephone number, a photo, video or audio file containing a child’s image or voice, and other identifying information.

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Neela
Neela
I work as the Content Writer for Gaming Ideology. I play Quake like professionally. I love to write about games and have been writing about them for two years.

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