The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has launched a new investigation into 10 “popular mobile games” to assess how they protect their youngest users.
Although the ICO has not revealed which games the review will be aimed at, the organization said it will review default privacy settings, geolocation controls, targeted advertising practices, and “any other privacy concerns identified during the review process.”
With around 90% of children using digital devices and 84% of parents reporting concerns about their children becoming victims of online predators or harmful content, the ICO said this focus on mobile games “follows significant progress in improving children's privacy standards on social media and video sharing platforms through the KidsCode strategy.”
The office also reported that 30% of children have stopped playing mobile games due to concerns about how data is collected or used, and three in four parents are concerned about what data about their children is being shared or how gaming companies are serving ads to minors.
“Children's online experiences are shaped not just by social media and video sharing platforms, but also by the games they play,” said UK Information Commissioner John Edwards.
“Our early review shows that the design features of many mobile games can be particularly intrusive, raising important questions about how these games are developed and used, as well as their compliance with ICO code standards for children.
“We are expanding our strategy to ensure that mobile games meet the same high data protection standards that we apply on other platforms.”
Last week The New York Times published “intense” interview with Roblox CEO David Baszuckiin which he was asked about the company's child safety measures.
In an interview with the Hard Fork podcast, when asked why he's “so confident” the company's safety measures are working, Basuki didn't draw attention to individual cases but insisted that “we're not doing this because of any laws that are coming, we think it's the right thing to do.”
