• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 21, 2023

The holiday season has become increasingly dangerous for children, especially as more of them receive mobile phones as birthday or holiday presents to keep in touch with their family and friends.

Forbes, Parent, PC Magazine and other online publications are filled with articles discussing this topic. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggests there is no ideal age for a child to receive a mobile phone and emphasizes the importance of parents understanding the pros and cons.

Findings from a Pixalate study released Thursday address some of the issues — notably child privacy concerns. The data found that 76% of the 231 apps in Google’s and Apple’s app stores intended for kids to call Santa Claus during the holidays request access to the user’s camera.

The third-quarter 2023 data found 190 apps in the Google Play store, with about 39 million downloads, and 41 apps in the Apple App store.

About 41% of the apps run ads -- 38% in Google Play and 49% in the Apple Apps store.

Some 33 of the apps request access to user location -- but 53 were observed passing the data to advertisers, with 88% sending user GPS coordinates in the advertising bid stream.

About 19 of the apps have no detectable privacy policy, and 14 are likely subject to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) for passing location information to advertisers.

Pixelate also found that 87% of these apps had no age gate and did not facilitate verified parental consent.

About 44% of these "Santa calling apps" in the Apple App store seem to have been abandoned for at least two years, compared with 15% in the Google Play store.

Pixalate notes that outdated and abandoned apps can become potential privacy and data security risks because vulnerabilities may not be identified, addressed and resolved. This could expose users to increased risk and the ad industry to potential compliance violations.

Another troubling finding is that 90% of these apps have no country of registry, but six are registered in the U.S. and five are in the U.K.