May 09, 2021 21:00:00

It turns out that 60% of school education apps send personal information of children to Google and Facebook

Apple and Google

provide plans and contents for educational sites, and the introduction of tablet terminals and PCs in educational settings is progressing. Meanwhile, the technology-related non-profit organization Me2B Alliance announced the results of a survey that '60% of apps used in educational settings send personal information of children to external companies such as Google and Facebook.' ..

School Mobile Apps Student Data Sharing Behavior – Me2B Alliance
https://me2ba.org/school-mobile-apps-student-data-sharing-behavior/

Me2BA Product Testing Spotlight Report Published: Data Sharing in Primary & Secondary School Mobile Apps – Me2B Alliance
https://me2ba.org/me2ba-product-testing-spotlight-report-published-data-sharing-in-primary-secondary-school-mobile-apps-2/

A research team from the Me2B Alliance investigated the fact that personal information is being transmitted to the outside via a third-party SDK in apps for mobile devices used in 38 schools in 14 states in the United States. ..

The graph of the survey results looks like this. The red bar shows the number of 'apps that include a third-party SDK that sends personal information to the outside', and the blue bar shows the number of 'apps that do not contain a third-party SDK'. If you check the graph, you can see that 44 (about 60%) of the 73 apps surveyed send their child's personal information to multiple external companies.

In addition, 66% of the 44 'apps including third-party SDKs that send personal information to the outside' were used in public schools.

Furthermore, if you check by OS, you can see that 73% of the 'apps including third-party SDKs that send personal information to the outside' were for Android.

A survey of third-party SDK providers by the Me2B Alliance found that 48.6% of the SDKs used in the app were made by Google and 14.4% were made by Facebook. According to the Me2B Alliance, these third-party SDKs send 'user's name,' 'email address,' 'location information,' etc. to external companies such as Google and Facebook. It was also revealed that most of the Android apps surveyed requested access rights to 'Schedule', 'Contacts', 'Photos / Media / Files', 'Location Information', and 'External Storage'. ..

'The findings show that many children's personal information is at stake,' said Lisa Levassour, executive director of the Me2B Alliance. 'App developers do not use third-party SDKs that send personal information to the outside world.' 'App distribution platforms such as the App Store and Google Play use personal information to be sent.' We are proposing an improvement plan to 'clarify'.