“60% of school apps send children’s personal information to Google and Facebook”

Apple and Google are providing plans and content for the educational field. Accordingly, tablets and PCs are being introduced in the educational field. Among these, the Me2B Alliance, a technology-related non-profit organization, announced a survey that 60% of applications used in education are sending personal information of children to external companies such as Google and Facebook.

The research team investigated how personal information is transmitted to the outside through third-party SDKs from mobile terminal apps used in 38 schools installed in 14 states in the United States. The survey found that 44 out of 73 apps, or 60%, send personal information about children to a number of external companies. In addition, 66% of 44 apps, including third-party SDKs that transmit personal information to the outside, were used by public schools.

By operating system, 73% of apps including third-party SDKs that transmit personal information to the outside are Android apps. As a result of examining the source of third-party SDKs, the research team found that 48.6% of the SDKs used in the app were from Google and 14.4% were from Facebook. These third-party SDKs send user names, email addresses, and location information to external companies such as Google and Facebook. It is also revealed that most of the Android apps surveyed required access to schedules, contacts, photo media files, location information, and external storage.

The research team found that a lot of children’s personal information is at risk as a result of this result. Appropriate measures are needed to protect children’s personal information. App distribution platforms such as Play are proposing an improvement plan that the transmitted personal information should be clarified. Related information can be found here.