{"id":53070,"date":"2017-11-18T05:23:57","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T05:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=53070"},"modified":"2017-11-18T05:23:57","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T05:23:57","slug":"germany-bans-smartwatches-for-kids-over-spying-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/security\/germany-bans-smartwatches-for-kids-over-spying-concerns.html","title":{"rendered":"Germany bans smartwatches for kids over spying concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Germany bans smartwatches for kids over spying concerns<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Germany bans smartwatches for kids over spying concerns:- Germany\u2019s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) issued a blanket ban on smartwatches aimed at children this week \u2014 and asked parents who\u2019d already purchased such a device to destroy them, for good measure. The aggressive move is a response to growing privacy concerns surrounding devices aimed at minors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">\u201cVia an app, parents can use such children\u2019s watches to listen unnoticed to the child\u2019s environment and they are to be regarded as an unauthorized transmitting system,\u201d the agency\u2019s president Jochen Homann said in a statement provided to the BBC. The FNA also urged educators to pay closer attention to students\u2019 watches, as, \u201caccording to our research, parents\u2019 watches are also used to listen to teachers in the classroom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Such concerns have been growing in recent years, as kid-targeted wearables have become more popular, along with their adult counterparts. Just last month, European watch dog group, Norwegian Consumer Council, issued a strongly worded report warning of safety concerns over GPS-enabled devices. That report went beyond tracking on the part of the parents, outlining the potential for simple hacking by outside parties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">\u201cAny consumer looking for ways to keep their children safe and secure might want to think twice before purchasing a smartwatch as long as the faults outlined in these reports have not been fixed,\u201d the NCC wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">That report specifically highlighted four kids\u2019 smartwatch brands \u2014 Gator 2, Tinitell, Viksfjord and Xplora. The Federal Network Agency\u2019s new rules, meanwhile, take things much further, banning the category at large. The decision follows a similar move last February, when the agency banned and ordered the destruction of the My Friend Cayla doll, after concerns were raised over the toy\u2019s built-in microphone and Bluetooth connectivity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Like that doll, the smartwatches have been classified as illegal spying devices by the agency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2017\/11\/17\/germany-bans-smartwatches-for-kids-over-spying-concerns\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/security\/germany-bans-smartwatches-for-kids-over-spying-concerns.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Germany bans smartwatches for kids over spying concerns Germany bans smartwatches for kids over spying concerns:- Germany\u2019s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) issued a blanket ban on smartwatches aimed at children this week \u2014 and asked parents who\u2019d already purchased such a device to destroy them, for good measure. The aggressive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":53074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[974],"tags":[103802,103799,103798,103801,103800],"class_list":["post-53070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-bans-smartwatches-for-kids","tag-germany-bans-smartwatches","tag-germanys-federal-network-agency","tag-kids-smartwatch-brands","tag-smartwatches-for-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}