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a new published by child safety groups Heat Initiative and ParentsTogether Action details the alarming presence of inappropriate apps that are rated as suitable for children up to four years old in Apple’s App Store. The groups worked with a researcher to review as many apps as possible in the span of 24 hours and say they ultimately identified more than 200 apps that contained “concerning content or features” given the ages they were rated for, including chatting with strangers. and the bride with artificial intelligence. apps, gaming apps with sexual or violent cues and images, and appearance rating apps based on artificial intelligence. Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment and will update this story when it hears back.
The investigation focused on apps with assigned age ratings of 4+, 9+ and 12+ in categories considered “risky”: chat (including artificial intelligence apps and chat with strangers), beauty, diet and weight loss, access to Internet without filters (applications to access sites prohibited in schools) and games. Among the findings, the report says that at least 24 sex games and 9 stranger chat apps were marked as appropriate for children in these age groups. The investigation also identified 40 apps for unfiltered Internet access and 75 apps related to beauty, body image and weight loss that have these age ratings, along with 28 shooting and crime games. Collectively, the approximately 200 infringing apps detected during the 24-hour investigation have been downloaded more than 550 million times, according to the Heat Initiative.
About 800 apps were reviewed in total, and the research found that some categories were more likely than others to include apps with inappropriately low age ratings. For stranger chat apps and games, “fewer were rated as appropriate for children,” the report says. In most cases, they were over 17 years old. But in the categories of weight loss and unfiltered Internet access, “almost all of the apps reviewed were approved for children over 4 years old.” The report calls on Apple to do better when it comes to child safety measures in the App Store, urging the company to use third-party reviewers to verify the age ratings of apps before they are available for download, and to make it transparent their age classification process. to consumers. You can read the full report, Rotten Ratings: 24 hours on the Apple App Store, here.
