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Apps spying on your children?

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    FTC: Smartphone apps secretly store data on your kids

  • Duration 3:16
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New concerns today about your child safety and it's not strangers you should be worried about -- cellphones the Federal Trade Commission warning that the apps to your kids are downloading.

Could be actually spying on them.

Giving game makers detailed information about who your kids are calling.

What they're buying and where they are located.

So is this right it should something be done about this Barnes Walters is -- First Amendment constitutional attorney Morgan right.

-- -- tech expert and cyber security analyst Morgan let me start with you.

This sounds dangerous I mean it it what makes parents very nervous when they think it's somebody can be tracking their kids' whereabouts is it is dangerous as it sounds.

Well it depends on the policies that are implemented and you know what really depends upon it depends upon the parents monitoring what their children do a lot of these applications have a very good benefit there's.

Good -- pros to having a location tracker to know where your children are.

Or being allowing them to.

In Iraq is certain ways you -- certain social media environments or play games it could be learning it can be education.

The thing you don't want to do is take your -- off the ball on what your children start downloading danger -- aware of or interacting in a way that's inconsistent with how you think they should be track you know they're -- is specially their location that that means the biggest.

Out area of concern for me is is being able to track their location.

Precisely sure I mean that's the thing it sends a shiver down parents.

-- because we know that there are predators out there.

So Lawrence -- walk us against -- this tracking the whereabouts of kids under eighteen years old.

Well there are laws that apply to mobile applications but what we're seeing here are some growing pains in the industry you know we saw some of these same debates when.

We first start talking about the use of cookies in Internet advertising and tracking usage of -- Internet consumers and here in the mobile application developers are trying to strike up proper balance between the convenience of the technology and the privacy rights.

Involved and the FTC has recently released a report.

That encourages the industry to develop better best practices to.

Increase the disclosures in the privacy policies.

That these applications have so that parents know exactly what information is going to be shared with these applications.

-- and of course I mean Morgan you said that.

You know ideally in an ideal world parents should stay on top of this but of course you know the parents sometimes can't stay on top of asking Americans are doing.

On these -- aren't so and somehow don't apparent -- to give their consent to some of this stuff.

Yeah they should and you know depending on which -- -- -- -- there's two big stores out there android and apple right and -- one is a little bit less it's not cure rated which is android side apple really tracks what they do a lot but it's still up to the parents.

I think as we were just talking about there's a growing mark that are out here for lot of things in one of those I believe is going to be a service.

That provides a list of apps that meet the policies that don't collect information without letting you know.

That behave in the proper way I think there's going to be a market solution to this you really want to avoid over -- -- your putting too much regulation in place as it does stifle innovation.

But you have to be careful because if you don't address the privacy issue.

It will kill off a lot of the market potential because people can't address the biggest concerns people have and that's the privacy of their children.

Sure of course Lawrence Walters Morgan right thanks so much for coming in -- alerting us that this is -- You -- Alison thank you be here.

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