From The Washington Post
We tested apps for children. Half failed to protect their data.
By Serge Egelman
When parents download a learning or gaming app from the “Designed for Families” section of the Google Play store, they likely assume that those apps keep their kids’ data safe. After all, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prohibits website operators and app developers from tracking or collecting personal data from children under the age of 13.
Yet that assumption could be wrong. More than 50 percent of Google Play apps targeted at children under 13—we examined more than 5,000 of the most popular (many of which have been downloaded millions of times)—appear to be failing to protect data....
Serge Egelman is an affiliated researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity
