STOPPING SPYING: How to protect your child’s privacy on their devices

Our personal information is being collected on every device we use. But it’s not just our information companies collect — our kids are also being tracked.

Dolls that allow strangers to listen in… criminals gaining access to your kids through video games…and now companies using the microphones and even the keystrokes on your child’s device to collect personal data.

“Being a mom to a 15-year-old teenager can be very overwhelming,” said parent Haley Viente.

Viente is pretty strict when it comes to what her son Blake can do with his devices.

“I’ll see my friends doing things and I won’t be allowed to do it, so it’s kind of frustrating sometimes,” Blake said.

Blake told us while he’s not as tech-savvy as most of his friends he does use social media…without putting too much thought into what information is being collected.

We asked the mother-son duo to figure out what the apps on Blake’s phone had permission to do.

He had five apps that are listening to him.

Then we had them look up the privacy policy for one of those apps to see just how Blake’s info is being used.

Security researcher Willis McDonald told us it’s on you, the parent, to search these policies for answers, but…

“Even though they’re saying they’re not doing one thing with your information, um, in a whole separate section, it basically negates that,” he said.

There are ways you can protect your child now.

McDonald told us besides turning off location services and microphones on devices and computers, parents need to look for input accessibility and screen recording.

“Screen recording actually allows somebody to watch what your child is doing,” he said. “Accessibility and input monitoring actually have the ability or give the ability for someone to monitor keystrokes.”

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