Based on Pixalate’s research, Geoffrey A. Fowler from the Washington Post published an article revealing how child-directed apps in the Apple and Google stores abuse their privacy.
Below are the highlights:
- The COPPA law, supposed to protect children online, does not give sufficient protection.
- Over 66% of iOS and 79% of Android most popular apps for children collect and send their personal information to the ad industry.
- The Washington Post wrote: “Apple and Google run the app stores, so what are they doing about it? Enabling it.”
- Children’s privacy should be a special consideration because many kids cannot distinguish between ads and the app’s content.
- According to the Washington Post, citing SuperAwesome research, “By the time a child reaches 13, online advertising firms hold an average of 72 million data points about them.”
- Pixalate identified over 391,000 child-directed apps across Google and Apple stores - a number that significantly exceeds the stores’ kids sections.
- 7% of all identified child-directed apps shared either location or internet address data, according to Pixalate’s research.
- Apps are avoiding COPPA by labeling apps used by kids as dedicated to those 13+.
- Apps should stop collecting data about kids younger than 13 or obtain parental consent, but many do not do it.
To limit the scale of children’s privacy abuse, Pixalate developed the ad industry’s first COPPA compliance technology to identify child-directed apps in Google and Apple App Stores. To learn more about this platform, meet with our experts.
