Connected toys systematically extract children’s personal data and conversations via bundled apps

Evidence

The popular playthings, marketed by Genesis Toys, are bundled with a mobile application that, once downloaded to a smartphone, “provides the data processing” to enable the toy’s ability to capture and understand whatever the child says. Along the way, the app accesses most of the phone’s functions, including many that are irrelevant to the toy’s operations such as contact lists and the camera. The app establishes a Bluetooth connection that links the toy to the internet, and it records and uploads conversations as the toy actively engages the child in discussion. One doll targeted in the complaint systematically prompts children to submit a range of personal information, including where they live. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 828

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘A doll that asks a child where she lives and uploads the answer’ is a memorable, self-contained elevator fact about the surveillance economy.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: was the My Friend Cayla doll actually pulled from markets after investigations? What regulations (if any) now govern connected toys?
• XREF: connects to: Children’s toys now socialize kids into financialized subjecthood — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 397; Home-device privacy policies extract biometric and audio data from entire households — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 741; The surveillance horizon extends to children’s toys that harvest underage behavioral surplus — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 827 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Internet-era data extraction far exceeds pre-internet social data sources #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 420
• Apps collect data beyond user control while framing collection as enhanced experience #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 517