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Majority of kids’ websites and apps collect and share personal data, survey reveals

Majority of kids’ websites and apps collect and share personal data, survey reveals

A new survey by a network of government privacy watchdogs reveals that more than 60 per cent of websites and apps geared towards Canadian children may be collecting personal information and passing it on to a third party.

The Global Privacy Enforcement Network — an international network of privacy regulators that includes the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada — reviewed 1,494 websites and apps from May 11-15 and found that 67 per cent of them collected personal information from children.

Focusing on trends among Canadian users, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s sweep team reviewed 118 websites and apps targeted directly at children, as well as 54 that are known to be popular with and used by kids.

The team’s findings showed that more than 50 per cent of Canadian sites collect personal information from children, including name, address, phone number and photo, audio or video.

In addition, 62 per cent of sites reviewed acknowledged that they may disclose that personal information to third parties.

Another sixty-two per cent allowed the user to be redirected to a different site, and only 28 per cent of the sites and apps swept by the Canadian team incorporated any form of parental control or protection.

A member of Canada’s sweep team, Tobi Cohen, outlined in a blog post a few of the sites that did and did not live up to the standards for children’s privacy online.

She lauded both Family.ca and Lego.com for their moderated message boards that did not allow users to post personal information, and noted that Santasvillage.ca asked users to provide their full name and email address.

“In exchange, it promised to bombard subscribers with marketing materials,” she wrote. “Not cool Santa, we’ll take the coal.”

GamezHero.com was also singled out for allowing users to display personal information, including name, age, sex and location. PBSkids.org, on the other hand, was praised for only offering generic, pre-set avatars and barring users from uploading personal photos.

The Canadian sweep team, which included nine children who participated under the supervision of a caregiver, reviewed the websites and apps with an eye on privacy policies, the potential sharing of information with third parties, moderated or unmoderated chat functions and the presence or lack of an account delete option.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada declined to release a full list of the websites and apps reviewed, but commissioner Daniel Therrien told Yahoo Canada News that of the sites and apps reviewed, two-thirds collected personal information and about 20 per cent collected sensitive information like age, address, photos and video.

“That kind of information can be quite sensitive and is an area of concern,” he said.

When asked what would be done with the results, he said that companies reviewed in the sweep would be notified of the findings.

“It’s our usual practice after conducting a sweep is to write a number of companies to point out the things that we’ve seen, to sometimes ask that things be changed, and by and large the companies react positively to these requests,” he added.

In an attempt to help kids better understand why their privacy matters, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has created a lesson plan for kids in Grade 7 and 8 that explains the Global Privacy Enforcement Network Sweep and has kids conduct privacy reviews of their own.

“We know that companies are not the only ones responsible for the protection of kids’ privacy,” Therrien said. “Parents and teachers obviously have a role. We as a regulator have a role, particularly in the area of increasing awareness of privacy issues among the public.”

Matthew Johnson, director of education at MediaSmarts, told Yahoo Canada News that the sweep’s results were sadly unsurprising. MediaSmarts, an Ottawa-based non-profit dedicated to improving media literacy and empowering youth to better engage with media, offers age-appropriate tips for parents concerned with keeping their kids safe online.

“We know quite clearly that young people face a lot of privacy issues online,” said Johnson. “The biggest concern of course is that they’re giving out any kind of personal data without their parents’ consent or knowledge. This is a real concern for a variety of reasons, one of which is that most kids this age don’t really have the critical ability to make decisions about giving data out. It’s hard for them to understand or appreciate the possible consequences or reasons why it’s not always a good idea to be giving out personal information.”

Johnson explained that aside from educating themselves on the issue, the best thing parents could do to protect children’s privacy online is to educate kids on the value of their personal data. He mentioned an initiative by MediaSmarts called Privacy Pirates, an online game that aims to teach kids aged seven to nine that all forms of personal information should be protected.

“Their personal information has value and they should think twice before giving it out,” he added.