Privacy breaches are slowly but surely becoming a norm but we bet you haven’t found a report that speaks of collecting and selling data related to kids.
The pandemic gave rise to the era of remote learning and most teaching strategies were restricted to online classes. But at that time, little did anyone imagine the thought of data belonging to kids being collected or their behavior monitored.
Thanks to a new report that was recently published by the Human Rights Watch, we’re getting some alarming statistics about how so many young students were exposed to the growing threat of breaches in privacy without any consent given.
The study showed figures from 2021 where data had been harvested from kids that were too busy or young to notice the activities taking place.
In this particular study, out of 48 different nations, 146 out of 164 remote learning strategies used in these countries were actually guilty of risking young kids or infringing their rights in this regard.
Interestingly, those platforms had either hired such technology or were capable of using tracking technology for monitoring purposes secretly, without taking consent from the kids or their guardians.
And just in case that wasn’t shocking enough, they sold that data further to different third parties.
The Human Rights Watch revealed how most of the data taken from the apps were sold and hence made their way to different ad-tech platforms. In other words, there were a great number of advertising companies that were keen on buying data pertaining to children than the number of tech firms that were busy collecting the data.
But now, the study says the process of promoting and making sure students were receiving education during the COVID-19 pandemic came at a major cost of a privacy breach. These kids were forced to pay a heavy cost in the form of selling off their privacy rights.
Moreover, one alarming report from that study shows how the tools outlined by most global governments were not specifically designed to be used by young kids. This includes Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
And even the ones that were kid-friendly were sending out data to firms such as Meta as well as Google. This would further be utilized by the tech giants for advertising related to behavioral purposes.
This research is one huge reminder for us all that surveillance is a bigger issue than what we may have thought it would be Moreover, seeing people profit off of the rights of others is beyond disturbing.
Read next: Study Shows Google Collects Most Data Out of All Big Tech Companies
The pandemic gave rise to the era of remote learning and most teaching strategies were restricted to online classes. But at that time, little did anyone imagine the thought of data belonging to kids being collected or their behavior monitored.
Thanks to a new report that was recently published by the Human Rights Watch, we’re getting some alarming statistics about how so many young students were exposed to the growing threat of breaches in privacy without any consent given.
The study showed figures from 2021 where data had been harvested from kids that were too busy or young to notice the activities taking place.
In this particular study, out of 48 different nations, 146 out of 164 remote learning strategies used in these countries were actually guilty of risking young kids or infringing their rights in this regard.
Interestingly, those platforms had either hired such technology or were capable of using tracking technology for monitoring purposes secretly, without taking consent from the kids or their guardians.
And just in case that wasn’t shocking enough, they sold that data further to different third parties.
The Human Rights Watch revealed how most of the data taken from the apps were sold and hence made their way to different ad-tech platforms. In other words, there were a great number of advertising companies that were keen on buying data pertaining to children than the number of tech firms that were busy collecting the data.
But now, the study says the process of promoting and making sure students were receiving education during the COVID-19 pandemic came at a major cost of a privacy breach. These kids were forced to pay a heavy cost in the form of selling off their privacy rights.
Moreover, one alarming report from that study shows how the tools outlined by most global governments were not specifically designed to be used by young kids. This includes Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
And even the ones that were kid-friendly were sending out data to firms such as Meta as well as Google. This would further be utilized by the tech giants for advertising related to behavioral purposes.
This research is one huge reminder for us all that surveillance is a bigger issue than what we may have thought it would be Moreover, seeing people profit off of the rights of others is beyond disturbing.
Read next: Study Shows Google Collects Most Data Out of All Big Tech Companies
