Talking Dolls Pose Privacy Risk to Children, Advocacy Groups Allege
06 December 2016 - 5:40PM
Dow Jones News
Internet-connected toys pose privacy risks to children, and
their parents often aren't aware, according to advocacy groups for
children and consumers.
A complaint expected to be filed Tuesday with the Federal Trade
Commission alleges that two talking dolls—My Friend Cayla and I-Que
Intelligent Robot, both made by Genesis Toys Inc.—collect and use
personal information from children in violation of rules
prohibiting unfair and deceptive practices.
The complaint was drafted by several groups, including the
Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood and Consumers Union. The
groups also filed complaints with data protection, consumer
protection and product safety regulators for the European Union,
France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Norway.
"When a toy collects personal information about a child,
families have a right to know, and they need to have meaningful
choices to decide how their kids' data is used," said Katie
McInnis, technology policy counsel for consumer advocacy nonprofit
Consumers Union.
According to the complaint, Genesis Toys doesn't get the consent
of children's parents before collecting children's voice recordings
and other personal data while they are using the toys. Genesis then
sends the voice recordings to a separate company that may use the
data for other products.
In previous cases, when the FTC has found companies violated the
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, it has typically filed a
civil administrative complaint against the company in an effort to
get the allegedly offending company to change its practices.
Los Angeles-based Genesis Toys didn't respond to a request for
comment.
My Friend Cayla, a $60 interactive doll that users can talk to,
uses speech recognition, a microphone and speakers to understand
what a user is saying. The internet-connected toy submits the
user's queries through a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone app
to come up with responses.
The Cayla doll is preprogrammed with phrases that reference
Disney World and Disney movies that would be difficult for young
children to recognize as advertising, according to the groups
filing the complaint.
The I-Que Intelligent Robot functions in a similar way and sells
for about $90. My Friend Cayla is sold at Walmart, Toys "R" Us,
Amazon.com and other retailers in countries around the world. The
I-Que Intelligent Robot is sold at retailers in the U.K.
For both toys, the terms of service are difficult to find, and
the documents give few details about what information is collected
from the children, how it is used, or where it ends up, the
complaint says.
"Children form friendships with dolls and toys with
'personalities,' and confide intimate details about their lives to
them," said Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood executive
director Josh Golin. "It is critical that the sensitive data
collected by these toys be subject to the most stringent
protections and not be used for manipulative and sneaky
marketing."
The complaint filed with the FTC is based on a report on
connected toys conducted by a Scandinavian consulting group on
behalf of the Norwegian Consumer Council. In addition to My Friend
Cayla and I-Que, the council also investigated Hello Barbie, an
interactive doll created by Mattel Inc. and tech company PullString
Inc.
Although Hello Barbie specifies that PullString won't share
voice data, it may still share transcripts with unspecified
parties, the report says. The advocacy groups didn't include Hello
Barbie in their complaint because it isn't for sale outside the
U.S., they said.
Mattel and PullString didn't respond to requests for
comment.
Write to Georgia Wells at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 06, 2016 01:25 ET (06:25 GMT)
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