18 Apr New Study Finds Thousands of Child Privacy-violating Apps on Google Play
A recent study conducted by the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California at Berkeley found that there are thousands of apps on Google’s Play Store which may be violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The researchers analyzed 6000 apps and discovered a number of different violations on thousands of apps. Around a thousand collected identifying information using tracking software which is explicitly forbidden for children’s apps, while nearly half did not use standard security measures to transmit sensitive data over the Internet.
The issues were found in popular games and learning apps such as Disney’s “Where’s My Water?,” Gameloft’s “Minion Rush” and Duolingo.
Source: Washington Post