Pixalate found more than 800,000 mobile apps in the Google and Apple app stores that are likely to be accessed by children under the age of 18; 64% of UK children’s apps on the Apple App Store ask for permission to access personal information
LONDON, August 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Pixalate, the world’s leading fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and mobile advertising, today released the UK Children’s Online Safety Report Q2 2022 : Google and Apple App Stores, examining the state of children’s privacy through the lens of the UK Children’s Code.
According to Pixalate’s analysis, there are more than 800,000 mobile apps in the Google and Apple app stores that are likely to be accessed by children under the age of 18 and therefore may be subject to the UK Children’s Code. These “UK kids apps” account for approximately 15% of all apps available for download in the Google and Apple app stores.
Key results
64% of children’s apps registered in the UK on the Apple App Store ask for permission to access personal information. 119 children’s apps registered in the UK have an untraceable privacy policy and request permission to access personal information. 11% of all UK kids apps have an undetected privacy policy. 68% of UK kids apps are registered in unknown or unspecified countries. According to Pixalate, 96% of all ad-supported open programmatic applications from Google and Apple Children’s UK pass GPS location or IP address with advertisers and/or data brokers in the ad bid stream.
What is the UK Children’s Code and who is subject to it?
The UK Age Appropriate Design Code (the “Children’s Code”) sets out 15 age appropriate design standards that reflect a risk-based approach. The focus is on providing default settings that ensure children have access to online services while minimizing data collection and use, by default.
The code applies to companies based in the UK and companies outside the UK that process personal data of UK children. Pixalate interprets this in the context of advertising platforms and mobile apps to mean that any business that has UK children under the age of 18 as users is likely to be covered by the code.
Pixalate analyzed apps available for download through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store as of the latest date of Q2 2022 (June 30th).
Read the full UK Online Child Safety Report for Mobile: Google and Apple here.
For more information on the Pixalate methodology, please visit our website.
About Pixalate
Pixalate is the market-leading fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics platform for connected television (CTV) and mobile advertising. We work 24/7 to protect your reputation and increase your media value. Pixalate offers the only system of coordinated display, app, video and OTT/CTV solutions for better detection and elimination of ad fraud. Pixalate is an MRC-accredited service for sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) detection and filtering across desktop and mobile web, mobile apps and OTT/CTV advertising. www.pixalate.es
Disclaimer
The content of this press release and the UK Mobile Children’s Online Safety Report Q2 2022: Google and Apple Report (the “Report”), reflect Pixalate’s views regarding the factors that Pixalate believes that they can be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate opinions are just that, opinions, which means they are not facts or guarantees; and neither this press release nor the Report is intended to impugn the position or reputation of any entity, person, or application, but rather to report apparent findings and trends related to mobile applications from the Google and Apple app stores. Pixalate calculates estimated programmatic ad spend through proprietary statistical models that incorporate programmatic monthly active users (MAU), average session length per user, average CPM for a given app category, and ad density.
CONTACT: [email protected]
