Users beware: Apps are using a loophole in privacy law to track kids' phones

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Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler says a 1998 law prohibits tech companies from collecting data on kids — but only if the companies know the age of their users.

technology columnist Geoffrey Fowler says smartphones and apps are harvesting our personal data — and that of our kids — on a scale that would shock most users. By the time a child is 13,, online advertising firms have collected an average of 72 million data points about that individual.

Fowler started out as a technology reviewer, looking at new gadgets and evaluating if they were worth their price.

"I think that's what most consumers already assume is happening: that if you ask a website to show you a map, it's collecting your location just for that moment to give you directions," Fowler says."The problem is that that's not what's happening. These companies are taking it as an opportunity to then collect your data all the time and do what they want to with it.

Kids use all kinds of things. The app stores that they have available to them on their phones are just the same as the app stores that adults have. So they want to play the same games that we want to play. Oftentimes that's things like Angry Birds and Candy Crush. ... They want to do a lot of the same things we do.

Source: News Formal (newsformal.com)

 

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