Thousands of Android apps are allegedly tracking the online activity of children in ways that violate US privacy laws, according to a recent study published by researchers from the International Computer Science Institute. The troubling aspect is that most of these apps and games are available on the Play Store
Out of the 5,855 apps included in the study, 281 collected contact or location data without asking for a parent’s permission, which raises a red flag for any app targeted at children. Additionally, 1,100 of the apps shared persistent identifying information with third parties for restricted purposes and 2,281 apps violated Google’s terms of service which forbids apps from sharing identifiers to the same destination as the Android Advertising ID. The Family section on the Google Play Store
