Connected Kids and the Dangers of Data Collection

Data breaches involving children’s toys and content have been in the news in recent months. These incidents serve as a reminder to the licensing community of the need for adequate protections when entering the fast-growing world of connected products for kids.

In recent examples, hackers were able to:

• Infiltrate VTech’s Learning Lodge app store, allegedly gaining access to nearly 5 million accounts, including photos, audio files, chat messages, names, genders, birthdates, and other information on 6.4 million children. This is the highest-profile and most widespread example to date.
• Breach SanrioTown.com, an online community featuring Hello Kitty and the other Sanrio characters, leading to the loss of email addresses, birthdates, countries of origin, and names, as well as some passwords and the Q&As used to retrieve forgotten passwords, for 3.3 million users.
• Get into Mattel’s Hello Barbie system and show how simple it would be to steal account information, access home Wi-Fi accounts, and make audio files of children’s conversations public. This episode reportedly was the result of a researcher trying to prove a point about data safety and did not involve any leaked information.
• Access Vivid Toys’ My Friend Cayla doll—which, like Hello Barbie, uses artificial intelligence to conduct increasingly sophisticated conversations—and cause it to swear at the kids.

The Vivid breach occurred in February of last year; all the rest came to light in November and December 2015. None compromised financial data, but that is not much to celebrate when considering the threat to children’s safety and privacy. Meanwhile, these types of issues are likely to grow in frequency along with the proliferation of connected kids’ products.

The Licensing Trend of the Month in the next edition of Raugust Communications’ free e-newsletter, scheduled for January 19, will focus on the so-called “Internet of Things,” outlining some of the issues associated with connected products that will have an impact on the licensing business. Subscribe here.