Category Archives: children

TikTok settles class action over child privacy one day after it’s filed

The $1.1m settlement is an “excellent result,” TikTok said, unsurprisingly: compared with its $5.7m FTC fine, it's dirt cheap.

US parents file class action against TikTok over children’s privacy

Collecting children's data without their guardians' consent is illegal under COPPA and already earned TikTok a huge fine.

Instagram trying to protect kids by getting dates of birth from new users

It's about showing age-appropriate content, it said. Though staying safe from child-privacy lawsuits doesn't hurt, either.

S2 Ep19: One of us just prevented a ransomware attack – Naked Security Podcast

Listen now!

Kids’ smartwatch security tracker can be hacked by anyone

For researchers at testing outfit AV-Test, the SMA M2 kids’ smartwatch is just the tip of an iceberg of terrible security.

Farewell the ‘porn block’ – a PR exercise but lousy policy | Amy Orben

Without greater access to our online habits, politicians cannot frame laws for the digital age

The UK government’s porn block was a dead man walking for months, if not years. It is long overdue that this attempt to curb children’s access to online pornography is scrapped. Almost two years ago, a close colleague and I sat in a meeting with one of the policymakers who had recently been asked to implement the proposal. The pained look on his face when we queried his progress confirmed our suspicions that it was an impossible task. It was clear to many that the block could – and would – never come to pass.

The plan did not have just one achilles heel – it had many.

Scientists and other stakeholders cannot access information about what the population is actually doing online

YouTube’s fine and child safety online | Letters

Fining YouTube for targeting adverts at children as if they were adults shows progress is being made on both sides of the Atlantic, writes Steve Wood of the Information Commissioner’s Office

The conclusion of the Federal Trade Commission investigation into YouTube’s gathering of young people’s personal information (‘Woeful’ YouTube fine for child data breach, 5 September) shows progress is being made on both sides of the Atlantic towards a more children-friendly internet. The company was accused of treating younger users’ data in the same way it treats adult users’ data.

YouTube’s journey sounds similar to many other online services: it began targeting adults, found more and more children were using its service, and so continued to take commercial advantage of that. But the allegation is it didn’t treat those young people differently, gathering their data and using it to target content and adverts at them as though they were adult users.