As a part of Forbrukerrådet's work on the Internet of things, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) has analyzed consumer rights in four smartwatches for children. These devices were all bought in Norwegian stores, and are called Gator 2, Tinitell, Viksfjord, and Xplora. These smartwatches for children are wearable mobile phones that allow parents to use an app on their smartphones to keep in touch with and track the location of their children. Since the main purpose of these devices is to give parents peace of mind while their children play freely outside, it is crucial that they maintain adequate security and privacy standards.
The project consists of two parts: an analysis of the features of the apps/devices and the accompanying user terms, presented in the WatchOut report, and a technical report commissioned by the NCC and produced by the IT security company Mnemonic.
Devices that use the Internet to allow real-time location tracking of, and direct communication with, young children, and which store names, photos and continuous and historic geolocation data, should have strong safeguards in place. This entails not only a high level of security to avoid unwanted access, but also a robust framework to ensure that data protection laws and the privacy rights of children are respected and upheld. Three out of the four watches that were analyzed fall short in both respects.
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