Many parents are concerned about the safety of their children and, therefore, some decide to give them mobile phones to keep track of them more easily. With certain applications, it is possible that through these phones parents can locate their children and thus have the certainty of knowing where they are at all times (especially when they are younger). The problem is that these applications are not at all secure, and they could be collecting a lot of information from both you and your children. We tell you more about it.
These applications are really useful and fulfill their purpose, but at the cost of the security of our information and even that of our children. These can be exploited and, without our realizing it, collect data of all kinds, which makes them very dangerous.
Some apps that do not respect your privacy
All this information comes from a study done by the Cybernews team. This has taken 10 applications from the Google Play Store that are designed to track the little ones at home in order to see if they are as safe as they should be. Keep in mind that these apps have been downloaded several million times , which means that there are many users who are exposed to their dangers.
To carry out the study, the Mobile Security Framework has been used, a tool capable of measuring and evaluating the security and privacy of applications. This assigns a score to each one that goes from A, as the best, to F, as the worst. Taking the apps in the study as a reference, there is none that got the highest score , seven receiving a B and two of them a C. The worst scored of all was considered “potentially dangerous”. The problem with these apps is that their names keep changing, so it’s often difficult to identify them correctly.
The biggest problem may be that the software teams behind these applications do not have the necessary resources to ensure that their application codes are secure enough, as these could give access to cybercriminals . As Karim Hijazi, CEO of the cyber intelligence company Prevailion explains:
It’s like making cheap sausages, and you don’t know what kind of ingredients are going into it. The problem for the end user is that you don’t really know everything that is in the application or how many different parties are receiving this information.
Additionally, all the apps that were tested had third-party trackers, so both parties — parents and kids — are unaware of how their data is being collected without permission . These data can be very useful for third parties, since with them it is possible to create commercial profiles for advertising or also to monitor the activity of the two parties.
Finally, all of these stored application programming interface (or API) keys inside. These are often used for authentication purposes, but their storage can be dangerous if a cybercriminal gains access to them. Some of these applications even had up to 4 of these keys , which makes them even more dangerous.
Is it worth using them?
As we said at the beginning of this article, the reality is that these applications perfectly fulfill their mission. Thanks to them it is very easy to be able to track our children, but the reality is that it may not pay to use them. One must be aware that it is very difficult for these applications that have access to tracking both children and adults to be completely safe, so before using them, if you have decided so, it is convenient to look for those that can offer a little more security .
On the other hand, some experts believe that the risks involved in using this type of application do not far outweigh the benefits it brings. The data protection laws are very clear about what any application can record, but a user cannot be 100% sure of the data that is being collected.