A recent study conducted by data privacy services firm Arrka has shed light on the alarming extent to which Google and Facebook are significant recipients of data collected from children’s apps.
The research, encompassing 60 children’s Android applications across nine categories, including games, edtech, school, coding, and childcare, revealed that Google leads the pack, gathering 33 percent of the data, followed by Facebook at 22 percent, as reported by The Economic Times.
Shivangi Nadkarni, the Co-founder and CEO of Arrka, expressed concern over processing personal data from children without sufficient safeguards despite a global increase in focus on children’s privacy and implementing various regulations over the past year.
The study highlighted that edtech, childcare, and coding apps accessed the highest number of dangerous permissions, with about two-thirds of childcare and edtech apps having access to children’s exact locations and 100 percent having access to the camera.
The study identified several smaller data recipients, such as AppsFlyer and AppLovin, each contributing around 2% of the overall trackers identified, collectively receiving 38% of the data.
Moreover, 85 percent of the surveyed apps were found to have accessed at least one “dangerous permission,” indicating the potential to misuse susceptible data that could harm children.
Analytics trackers were embedded in 80 percent of the children’s apps, and 54 percent featured advertising trackers. Gaming, tech, and coding apps topped the list regarding the number of trackers.
The report also underscored a significant disparity in age-gating mechanisms among Indian apps compared to global counterparts. Only 35 percent of Indian apps collect the user’s date of birth, and merely 13 percent restrict access to certain features based on age, as opposed to 60 percent and 55 percent in the US and EU apps, respectively.
The study further revealed that Indian children’s apps lag in transparency measures, such as having a dedicated section for parents in the privacy policy.
Only 38 percent of Indian children’s apps had such a section, compared to 83 percent for European apps and 67 percent for US apps. Additionally, 35 percent had a separate privacy policy for children, in contrast to over half of US and EU apps.
The research emphasized the importance of compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), passed in August of the previous year, which includes provisions to prevent data misuse that could adversely affect children’s well-being. It concluded that Indian apps have room for improved privacy and transparency compared to their global counterparts.
