Kids say a lot of random, unsolicited, or just plain personal things to their toys while playing. When that toy is stuffed with just fluff and beans, it doesn’t matter what the kid says: their toy is a safe sounding board. When their playtime companion is an internet-connected recording device that ships off audio files to a remote server without even notifying parents — that’s a whole other kind of problem.
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A lot of parents will skim the above, shrug, and think it’s no big deal, because isn’t everything connected now? There’s a big problem with these particular toys though, and that’s a third party, Nuance, who happens to be a defense contractor. You might want to think twice about inviting them into your house to listen to every word.
Nuance is a giant company best-known — to consumers, at least — for its Dragon-branded suite of speech-to-text dictation software. The company also has a significant presence in healthcare dictation, and is — like more large corporations than you’d think — a defense contractor that sells products, including “voice biometric solutions,” to military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies.
And here’s where it starts to get more complicated: both toys are also governed under Nuance’s general privacy policy, which says, “We may use the information that we collect for our internal purposes to develop, tune, enhance, and improve our products and services, and for advertising and marketing consistent with this Privacy Policy.”
It continues, “If you are under 18 or otherwise would be required to have parent or guardian consent to share information with Nuance, you should not send any information about yourself to us.”
Yes, it’s very interesting, that warning being on toys marketed to 4 year olds and up. There’s a lot to this story, and if you’ve found these items on your sproggens’ wish list, you might want to find alternatives. Full story here.
Kids say a lot of random, unsolicited, or just plain personal things to their toys while playing
I can just see it now. Someone leaves talking Barbie near Talking G.I. Joe and Joe says threatening things like “I’m going to kill you” and the black suburbans come screeching up.
How fun would it be to leave on of those next to a TV and see what happens….? :D
I might have to send some to a few right wing friends…..
Wait, what?
They’re trying to push the responsibility onto preschoolers? That’s not how the world works where I live, but in the USA it probably does…
I’m really glad I have a rule against that sort of toys anyway, if only for the preservation of my own precious nerves.
Trying to teach kids how to use the internet responsibly is difficult already. I don’t need toys that don’t even give an option to do so.
Giliell@3, According to the link given in the OP, that warning appears deep in the middle of a long End User License Agreement which pops up when the enabling app (not mentioned in the OP?) is first installed on the (presumably parent’s / guardian’s) smartphone. As such I can easily see the spooks / scumbags behind this arguing a responsible, of-age, person did agree, and that the child is obviously not expected to make a decision here.
As the OP says, there much more to this story than excerpted in the OP. For instance: It is not possible to review (meaning: see or (re-)read) that license agreement after the first time; and The communications between the toy and the smartphone (bluetooth) is hopelessly insecure, allowing a variety of attacks / disruptions.
Update: German parents told to destroy doll that can spy on children: