How educational apps can send children’s data to the advertising market

A Human Rights Watch investigation found that education websites and apps used by children and teens in 49 countries violated the privacy and other rights of minors during the Covid-19 pandemic, when education became remote.

Of 164 products developed by so-called edtechs (educational technology companies), 89% “jeopardized or directly violated the privacy and other rights of children and adolescents for purposes unrelated to their education,” according to the organization. In most cases, the sharing took place with technology giants, data brokerage companies and digital advertising companies.

Check out how this flow of information on the internet usually takes place:

Educational platforms install tracking technologies, such as ad trackers or cookies, which share user data with third parties, often linked to the advertising and digital advertising segmentation sector.

Sending information to the advertising market, without this being explicit in the terms of use or in the privacy policies, goes against international principles for the protection of minors.

The private data that is eventually shared with third parties says a lot about an individual. They are: precise location, saved phone contacts (it is possible to identify who is the “mother”, the “father” and the “grandmother”, for example), speed of mouse movement, words typed in the teaching platform (even the texts that were not sent) and various patterns of virtual interaction.

In possession of this anonymized data (anonymized), companies in the advertising market aggregate information into different groups, based on the online behavior of users.

Some tracking technologies are capable of “chasing” the child throughout their internet browsing. With this data gathered, advertisers can segment the advertisements and reach well-defined audiences, as this data allows inferring even the estimated income of the child’s family.

In this model, children and adolescents are targeted by behavioral advertising before they have developed the ability to differentiate between them.

Algorithms from advertising companies begin to determine the child’s online experience, sometimes reinforcing consumer stereotypes (such as selling dolls for girls and strollers for boys) and influencing beliefs and opinions.

People born in the last decade are part of the first generation that has data widely collected by these digital technologies from a very early age, which can determine an even more “tailored” adult experience on the internet.