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Your Kids' Apps Are Spying on Them


View as: Print Mobile App Share:

Children’s privacy deserves special attention because kids’ data can be misused in some uniquely harmful ways. Research suggests many children can’t distinguish ads from content, and tracking tech lets marketers micro-target young minds.

Credit: Sean Loose/The Washington Post

Imagine if a stranger parked in front of a child's bedroom window to peep inside. You'd call the police.

Yet that happens every day online, and Big Tech looks the other way.

Apps are spying on our kids at a scale that should shock you. More than two-thirds of the 1,000 most popular iPhone apps likely to be used by children collect and send their personal information out to the advertising industry, according to a major new study shared with me by fraud and compliance software company Pixalate. On Android, 79% of popular kids apps do the same.

From The Washington Post
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