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May 6, 2021 02:02 am
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/SvMZzb8w_dM/american-schools-phone-apps-send-childrens-info-to-ad-networks-analytics-firms
American Schools' Phone Apps Send Children's Info To Ad Networks, Analytics Firms
LeeLynx shares a report from The Register: The majority of Android and iOS apps created for US public and private schools send student data to assorted third parties, researchers have found, calling into question privacy commitments from Apple and Google as app store stewards. The Me2B Alliance, a non-profit technology policy group, examined a random sample of 73 mobile applications used in 38 different schools across 14 US states and found 60 percent were transmitting student data. The apps in question send data using software development kits or SDKs, which consist of modular code libraries that can be used to implement utility functions, analytics, or advertising without the hassle of creating these capabilities from scratch. Examples include: Google's AdMob, Firebase, and Sign-in SDKs, Square's OK HTTP and Okio SDKs, and Facebook's Bolts SDK, among others. The data that concerns Me2B includes: identifiers (IDFA, MAID, etc), Calendar, Contacts, Photos/Media Files, Location, Network Data (IP address), permissions related to Camera, Microphone, Device ID, and Calls. About 49 percent of the apps reviewed sent student data to Google and about 14 percent communicated with Facebook, with the balance routing info to advertising and analytics firms, many among them characterized as high risk by the Me2B researchers. Among the public school apps, 67 per cent sent data to third parties; private school apps proved less likely to send data to third parties (57 percent). Interestingly, the research group found a signifiant difference across mobile platforms. According to The Register, "91 percent of student Android apps sent data to high-risk third parties while only 26 percent of iOS apps did so, and 20 percent of Android apps piped data to very high-risk third parties while only 2.6 percent of iOS did so." The report adds: "Nonetheless, the researchers expressed concern that 95 percent of third-party data channels in the surveyed student apps are active even when the user is not signed in and that these apps send data as soon as the app is loaded."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/SvMZzb8w_dM/american-schools-phone-apps-send-childrens-info-to-ad-networks-analytics-firms
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