The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has released a report app-ly titled, “Mobile Apps for Kids: Current Privacy Disclosures Are Disappointing.” In it, the Commission states that information is being gathered from your children’s Apple and Android apps but that at the moment, it is difficult to say what exactly that data is and who has access to it.

To find this out, one would have to do a thorough investigation of every app out there (there are over 500,000 at the App Store alone) and break down their code to see if there are reasons to worry about any potential security breach. Considering that not even Apple has such a policing policy in place, it is hard to imagine the government using the necessary resources to deal with what is essentially a private sector issue. And yet, they must.

Apple Makes Some Big Announcements

The report by the Trade Commission is all the more concerning given a couple big announcements Apple recently made. The first is that the number of iOS devices (over 300 million) has now surpassed the total number of Macs sold in all the 28 years since the first Macintosh 128k hit the market in January of 1984. The second announcement is a ‘cheerier’ note about a contest to celebrate the 25 billionth app download at the App Store.

Combined, these two stories illustrate just how exponential the growth has been since the launch of the App Store in 2008. Not only is there a rush by companies to launch new apps to tap into this vast market, there is also the fervor among consumers to purchase these ‘smart’ devices and their accompanying applications. It has scarcely given consumer—parents—any time to consider the implications.

The Power of the iOS and the Temptation of an Ice Cream Sandwich

If you have ever used an iOS or Android device (with its new Ice Cream Sandwich OS), you know the how easy it is to go to the App Store or Android Market, download an app, and to have it up and running. It takes just a few seconds. And in those few seconds, most of us skip over the prompt that asks (sometimes quite vaguely or not at all) for the permission to access our information.

In the split second when you are considering Allow or Don’t Allow, a part of you is left feeling that if you select Don’t Allow, somehow you will be missing out on some keen features that the app has to offer. And this may very well be true. However, the question still stands: Do you allow, or do you not allow?

U.S. Trade Commission Report

The problem is that there is no way to know exactly how much of your information will be accessible and who potentially has access to it. This is precisely the finding of the U.S. Trade Commission. The Commission reviewed 400 kid-focused apps and whether or not those apps connected to social media or if any data collection was disclosed.

The data can range from a person’s geo-location (obtained via GPS), phone number, list of contacts, call logs, and other personal information stored on the device. The report states, “Indeed, across the wide range of “kids” apps examined in the survey, staff found very little information about the data collection or sharing practices of these apps. Apple’s and Google’s mobile operating systems and app stores provide limited notice to users regarding app capabilities, and leave the bulk of disclosure to individual app developers.” That last statement is perhaps what is most disconcerting.

We recently reported about two companies that offered apologies for having uploaded the information of its users without explicit permission. One of these companies, Path, openly and cheerfully states in their demo video that with Path you can “share photos and videos, who (you are) with, where (you are)…what (you are) thinking, and when (you) a wake up and go to sleep” and that “Path 2 automatically shares when (you) change neighborhoods.” The apology, of course, only came after the problem was ‘pointed out’ to them.

It is this kind of cavalier attitude that makes one, as they grow older, become a little more cautious and perhaps, even if on some unconscious level, understand the often incoherent rants of the conservative right.