Today, more and more children are using digital devices from a younger age. Often they’re given access to tablets and smartphones that have child-friendly apps downloaded onto them for education, fun and more.
However, recent studies have shown that apps tend to be using more data than we initially suspected.
So how much do app developers know about our kids from how they use these apps?
To determine which app is the most invasive, TheToyZone analyzed the app permissions required to use a range of popular apps for kids across different categories, including educational apps, games, social media, instant messengers and streaming.
Here’s a preview of the top 10 kids apps that collect the most data overall:
Methodology
Privacy policies of children’s apps were checked for the types of data the apps collect from their users across “Data Used to Track You,” “Data Linked to You, and “Data Not Linked to You” as filled in by the app developers when submitting their app to the Apple App Store.
The types of data collected by each app were then cross-referenced with Apple’s App Privacy Details to determine how many of the possible 32 data segments (e.g. Contact Info, Location, Search History) each app collects from its users. Most and least invasive apps were determined based on the total count of segments tracked by each app. In cases where multiple apps were tied as least invasive, an app that was most similar to the most invasive app was listed as the least invasive (and best alternative).
The data was collected in January 2022.
The full data of the study can be viewed here: bit.ly/invasive-kids-apps
Available Assets
TheToyZone produced a series of assets:
- Chart – Most and Least Data-Hungry Apps per Category: the most and least invasive apps by category, with the segment breakdown
- Ranking – Most Data-Hungry Categories: categories ranked by the average number of data segments
- Individual Category Rankings: separate statics for each category ranking all apps by number of segments, with a key for the type
- Educational
- Gaming
- Social Media and Messaging
- Video Streaming
- HTML Table – All Data: segment breakdown for all apps, with filters for overall and the different categories. Ranked by total segments tracked column (embed code in Dropbox transfer link)
Key Findings
- The most invasive kid’s app in our study is Greenlight Kids & Teen Banking, tracking 22 types of data.
- Money Management apps for kids are the most data-hungry category, collecting an average of 10 data types each.
- Science apps are the least hungry on average, collecting around 2.4 data types.
- Of the 107 apps we surveyed, only 17 collected zero data.
Research Notes
Top-level findings
Greenlight Kids & Teen Banking is the most invasive kids’ app in our ranking, with 22 data parameters tracked, including user’s physical address and rough location.
It’s followed by mobile games – Pokemon GO and Animal Jam, tacking 17 and 16 data points respectively.
Another massively popular gaming app – Roblox, owned by Microsoft – is tied in 4th place with Facebook’s Messenger Kids, Kinzoo Social, and YouTube Kids. All these apps track 15 different data segments from its users.
A children’s app from another tech giant, Amazon, collects data on 14 different segments from its users.
Luckily, not all apps for children actively collect data from their users. There were 17 apps that, according to their App Store information, collect absolutely no data.
Overall, Money Management apps for kids are the most invasive, collecting data on 10 different parameters from its users. Gaming isn’t far away with an average of nine segments tracked by apps in this category. Social Media and Video apps keep tabs on more than six data segments.
On the flip side, Science (2.4 data parameters), Nature & Animals (3.4), and Coding (3.6) apps track the least amount of data from its users.
