- Jun 9, 2013
- 6,720
The FBI has warned parents that internet-connected toys could present privacy and safety risks for their children because of the large amount of personal data that could be disclosed.
The Internet crime Complaint Center (IC3), a division of the FBI, issued a public service announcement which aims to highlight how ‘smart’ toys and entertainment devices increasingly come equipped with sensors, microphones, cameras, data storage components and other multimedia capabilities – such as speech recognition and GPS.
It said this affected parents because the information that is recorded or collected could include things like the child’s name, the child’s school and other activities. Combining this with the fact the toy can connect to the internet or other devices should be a cause for concern, the FBI said.
This is because it would enable a company to have a huge amount of data about the child at its disposal – including an address, date of birth, pictures, voice messages, conversation recordings, past and real-time physical locations, internet use history and IP addresses.
“The exposure of such information could create opportunities for child identity fraud. Additionally, the potential misuse of sensitive data such as GPS location information, visual identifiers from pictures or videos, and known interest to garner trust from a child could present exploitation risks”, it said.
Read More. FBI: IoT Toys Could Present a Privacy and Safety Risk
The Internet crime Complaint Center (IC3), a division of the FBI, issued a public service announcement which aims to highlight how ‘smart’ toys and entertainment devices increasingly come equipped with sensors, microphones, cameras, data storage components and other multimedia capabilities – such as speech recognition and GPS.
It said this affected parents because the information that is recorded or collected could include things like the child’s name, the child’s school and other activities. Combining this with the fact the toy can connect to the internet or other devices should be a cause for concern, the FBI said.
This is because it would enable a company to have a huge amount of data about the child at its disposal – including an address, date of birth, pictures, voice messages, conversation recordings, past and real-time physical locations, internet use history and IP addresses.
“The exposure of such information could create opportunities for child identity fraud. Additionally, the potential misuse of sensitive data such as GPS location information, visual identifiers from pictures or videos, and known interest to garner trust from a child could present exploitation risks”, it said.
Read More. FBI: IoT Toys Could Present a Privacy and Safety Risk
