A Glance of Child’s Play Privacy in Smart Toys

Hung, Patrick C. K.; Iqbal, Farkhund; Huang, Shih-Chia; Melaisi, Mohammed; Pang, Kevin

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48674-1_20

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Hello Barbie has been extensively scrutinized for its privacy and security practices [14], [25], [38]. It encourages children to divulge intimate details, which are then shared with Mattel's partner, ToyTalk, and with parents through the web portal [29], [54], presenting legal implications if a child discloses any physical or sexual abuse to the toy [34].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Playing With Danger: A Taxonomy and Evaluation of Threats to Smart Toys

Shasha

Mahmoud

Mannan

et al. 2019

IEEE Internet Things J.

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Smart toys have captured an increasing share of the toy market, and are growing ubiquitous in households with children. Smart toys are a subset of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, containing sensors, actuators, and/or artificial intelligence capabilities. They frequently have internet connectivity, directly or indirectly through companion apps, and collect information about their users and environments. Recent studies have found security flaws in many smart toys that have led to serious privacy leaks, or allowed tracking a child's physical location. Some well-publicized discoveries of this nature have prompted actions from governments around the world to ban some of these toys. Compared to other IoT devices, smart toys pose unique risks because of their easily-vulnerable user base, and our work is intended to define these risks and assess a subset of toys against them. We provide a classification of threats specific to smart toys in order to unite and complement existing adhoc analyses, and help comprehensive evaluation of other smart toys. Our vulnerability taxonomy addresses the potential security and privacy flaws that can lead to leakage of private information or allow an adversary to control the toy to lure, harm, or distress a child. Using this taxonomy, we perform a thorough experimental analysis of eleven smart toys and their companion apps. Our systematic analysis has uncovered that several current toys still expose children to multiple threats for attackers with physical, nearby, or remote access to the toy.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Playing With Danger: A Taxonomy and Evaluation of Threats to Smart Toys

Shasha

Mahmoud

Mannan

et al. 2019

IEEE Internet Things J.

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show abstract

“…However, such capabilities evoke greater concerns to children's privacy and increase access to the toy to retrieve confidential and sensitive information. For instance, Hello Barbie doll plays pre-defined phrases that might encourage children to reveal confidential information on themselves and their family, which can be of great value to advertisers, among other risks to the children's privacy (Hung et al, 2016b).…”

Section: Smart Toys and Smart Toy-related Privacy Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this may be considered a general IoT risk, the specificities of child data make child data breaches a much more severe social issue. The type of user in conjunction with the type of product can make the combination explosive: Hung et al (2016b) found examples of unintended phrases in Hello Barbie's repertoire that might encourage children to reveal private information indirectly. This is especially dangerous as children are often unaware that others might hear what was said to the toy .…”

Section: Smart Toy-related Children's Privacy Risksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as stated by several authors, specificities must be addressed. Although smart toys are considered a sub-area of IoT (Hung et al, 2016b), security should be addressed in a deeper way for this domain, because end users are children who often have little concern and awareness about privacy, not deciding about privacy policies. In addition, smart toys must be under the child's privacy rights, which may change according to the region and country .…”

Section: Solutions To Mitigate Smart Toy-related Children's Privacy Rmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar to other IoT products, ensuring the privacy of the information collected is a critical challenge to smart toys (Hung et al, 2016b). In this case, the concern is even greater because PII is collected from underage users.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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