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Your Kids' Apps Are Spying on Them


Children’s privacy deserves special attention because kids’ data can be misused in some uniquely harmful ways. Research suggests many children can’t distinguish ads from content, and tracking tech lets marketers micro-target young minds.

Credit: Sean Loose/The Washington Post

Imagine if a stranger parked in front of a child's bedroom window to peep inside. You'd call the police.

Yet that happens every day online, and Big Tech looks the other way.

Apps are spying on our kids at a scale that should shock you. More than two-thirds of the 1,000 most popular iPhone apps likely to be used by children collect and send their personal information out to the advertising industry, according to a major new study shared with me by fraud and compliance software company Pixalate. On Android, 79% of popular kids apps do the same.

From The Washington Post
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