10 Child Monitoring Android Apps were Caught Snooping on Parents

It comes as a big shocker to most of us that 10 popular child-monitoring apps are prying on their parents. As reported by the Cyber news research group, it’s not the kids alone who are monitored by these child monitoring apps, but the parents too are under surveillance. The research team analyzed 10 child monitoring apps and found each app that was installed at least one million times to be indulging in this activity. Of these 10 apps, they even rated them from zero to 100 on security and privacy.

Using the Mobile security framework (MobSF) benchmark, which is a security analysis tool the research wing also inspected the security walls to detect any malicious activities behind them. The results were very shocking: 

1. Phone Tracker by Number – 25

2. FamiSafe: Parental Control App – 30

3. Find my kids: location tracker – 36

4. My Family Locator, GPS tracker – 41

5. MMGuardian App for Child Phone – 43

6. Family Locator – GPS Tracker & Find Your Phone App – 43

7. MMGuardian Parent App – 44

8. Find my Phone. Family GPS Locator by Family – 45

9. Family GPS tracker KidsControl – 47

10. Pingo by Findmykids – 53

The results derived clearly indicate the presence of third-party surveillance with Phone Tracker scoring the least. This indicates a huge pitfall in terms of privacy. The best score being the Pingo’s isn’t an exceptional score either, it is barely 53. This means the app is still suspicious and likely be invading privacy, with third-party agents accessing the app’s data. 

Violating privacy seems to be these apps’ forte. These child monitoring apps can violate the privacy of children and reveal the information to unauthorised vendors. It is always good to have an eye on your children, but it is better to be on the lookout for untrustworthy apps.