Some apps made for children may violate federal privacy laws
A recent study showed that many free apps designed for children collect and share information that violates federal privacy law.
The study examined 5,855 of the most popular free children바카라 게임 웹사이트s apps in the Google Play Store and was conducted earlier this year by researchers at the University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of California Berkeley, Stony Brook University, IMDEA Networks and International Computer Science Institute.
Researchers touted the project as the first study to monitor actual program behavior in real time and at scale. Of the 5,855 apps they tested, researchers found that:
- 256 of them collected information sufficient to figure out one바카라 게임 웹사이트s location
- 107 of the shared the device owner바카라 게임 웹사이트s email address
- 1,100 of them sent persistent identifiers to third parties whose terms of service explicitly state it should not receive data from children바카라 게임 웹사이트s apps
The researchers chose to test Android apps because the operating system is open source, and the source code for iOS apps is not accessible.
Researchers said a majority of the apps they tested are potentially in violation of COPPA, the Children바카라 게임 웹사이트s Online Privacy Protection Rule.
Dr. Eric Cole, author of Online Danger and founder of Secure Anchor Consulting, said the results do not surprise him. He said if law enforcement goes after some of these companies, they are likely to shut down and start a new company.
바카라 게임 웹사이트A lot of these folks know they바카라 게임 웹사이트re breaking the law, but they바카라 게임 웹사이트re making $80,000-$100,000 over a few months, so they바카라 게임 웹사이트re going to do it and they sort of stay one step ahead of enforcement,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Cole said.
Cole added that it바카라 게임 웹사이트s very hard to enforce different child safety laws because there are a lot of apps in the marketplace and they change quickly. He said without a detailed study, it바카라 게임 웹사이트s hard to know what personal information the apps are collecting.
In response to questions about certain companies named by the study, a member of the Federal Trade Commission바카라 게임 웹사이트s Office of Public Affairs, Juliana Gruenwald Henderson, told CNN, 바카라 게임 웹사이트We vigorously enforce COPPA and have brought nearly 30 enforcement actions and obtained more than $10 million in civil penalties against companies for violation of the COPPA rule since it was enacted. FTC investigations are nonpublic, so we can바카라 게임 웹사이트t comment on whether we haven an open investigation on any particular company.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Cole said the good news is that none of the apps in the study are tracking information secretly. He offered the following advice for parents:
1. Go to your phone settings. Turn off location services for any apps that you don't want to track your location.
2. Buy the paid version of the app. A free app can make money by taking personal information to create targeted ads. While a paid app could presumably still do the same thing, it is already making money from your purchase.
3. Let your child play on the device in 바카라 게임 웹사이트airplane mode.바카라 게임 웹사이트 Sticking to games local to the device, or playing in airplane mode, prevents information from being transmitted.
4. Stick with well-known developers with apps that have high ratings and a high number of downloads.
Cole said child predators are 바카라 게임 웹사이트putting out games, they바카라 게임 웹사이트re tracking your child바카라 게임 웹사이트s location, but instead of pushing them to a toy store, they바카라 게임 웹사이트re going to try to abduct your children or cause harm. So, this is a much bigger problem than what the study really highlights.바카라 게임 웹사이트