Saturn iOS app risk to teens aged 14 to 18

[Ink]

Content source

https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/12/saturn-app-teen-safety/

What if I told you there was a new app that let anyone easily look up names and social media accounts for local teenagers? Creepy much? That’s exactly what a new app called Saturn does. It’s also currently one of the top 15 iPhone apps on the App Store.

Students can scan a photo of their class schedule, and Saturn uses basic optical character recognition intelligence to create a personal school calendar.

This aspect of Saturn is actually very polished and clever. Unfortunately, Saturn is explicitly targeting high school students, not college attendees. Therefore, the majority of its users will be aged 14 through 18. Privacy should be the foundation of an app meant to only be used by teens.

Anyone can download Saturn, provide a general location, and select a local high school. All anyone needs to view every user from a local high school is a phone number. You can opt out of providing a precise location, and you can decline uploading your contacts to Saturn.

The setup process asks for a name (you can make it up), a birthday (you can fake it), and a graduating class (this just lists your high school level). If you provide answers to these three prompts, you’re free to browse Saturn as if you were a student.

At this point, you have total access to every user associated with the high school in under five minutes Information that can be shared on Saturn includes:

• student names
• account photos
• class times and teachers
• links to Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Venmo accounts
• the ability to send private messages

No actual identify verification required.

Related:

• Keeping Students Safe on Saturn