Advocates Alarmed That Toys and Tablets Are Watching Kids

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/12/21/toys-electronic-manipulation?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-12-21

As the holiday season rolls around, parents may be alarmed to learn that Santa isn’t the only one with an eye on their kids. Revelations about hacked toys and complaints about marketing overreach demonstrate how vulnerable families can be to unauthorized data collection, security breaches, and online manipulation.

Advocates warn there’s a surprising number of toys that connect to a cloud service and expose kids to spying hackers. U.K. officials recently arrested a man on suspicion of hacking toy company VTech, the makers of child-oriented tablet toys. Photos, chat logs, and other information shared by more than 6 million children and 5 million parents were leaked. Another toy that’s sounding alarms is Hello Barbie, a chatty version of the popular doll that records a child’s question and sends it to a third party for a response. It was named the worst toy of the year bthe Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, an advocacy group for parents trying to limit commercial access to children. The group alleges vulnerabilities with its Wi-Fi connection—the toy makers say they’ve fixed any issues.

Then there are the marketing and tracking vulnerabilities of the screens that Mom and Dad use too. Of children eight and younger, 75 percent had access to smartphones or tablets in 2013, a sharp increase from 52 percent in 2011, according to a survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy group that provides reviews and media information to parents. With increased exposure to advertisers, several groups have taken notice.

There’s a loophole in the now-dated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, passed in 1998, which protects children 13 and younger from having their data collected from websites without .parental consent, but does not prevent companies from creating ads that target kids online