The Federal Trade Commission and 27 members of the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN), which comprises privacy enforcement agencies worldwide, are joining forces to continue efforts to better protect children’s privacy online. To aid these efforts, the FTC’s new Office of Technology Research and Investigation (OTRI), will analyze children’s mobile apps and expects to release a summary of findings later this year. The analysis will include scrutinizing these apps’ privacy disclosures, reviewing their interactive features, and examining their information collection practices.
The FTC’s last two similar studies from 2011 and 2012 found that most mobile apps aimed at kids failed to give basic information about privacy practices and interactive features, and usually did not provide any information about data collected through the app, from the type of data to the purpose of collection, and even whether that information would be shared with third parties.
Photo by Brad Flickinger from Flickr
