Post the FTC Warning, Apple App Store and Google Play store remove three dating apps
The FTC, also known as the Federal Trade Commission, has notified today that Apple and Google have removed three dating applications from their respective play store because of all the underage users who could potentially become victims of sexual harassment. Federal Trade Commission attorney Lisa Weintraub Schifferel wrote:
“FastMeet, Meet24, and Meet4U are all made by Ukraine company Wildec which is directly in violation with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act which is also known as COPPA.”
The Federal Trade Commission had sent a letter to Wildec at the beginning of May saying that the applications they designed did not prevent children under the age of 13 from using the application. These profiles of the underage children were also visible to other users using the application. According to research, it was figured out that there are users of this application who are as young as 12 years.
According to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act:
“All the application developers are required to ask their parents for consent before obtaining any kind of personal information.”
According to the Federal Trade Commission, they have received actual information that children are using these applications and their personal information is being obtained by the company. The FTC will again be reviewing all the applications next month so that they comply with all the laws set by them.
Child exploitation is a big issue which has become a bigger area of concern and the United Kingdom government is really looking into it to solve all the issues like sexual harassment of children. It has been found out that there are more than 30 cases of child rape which have been linked to dating applications like Grindr and Tinder since 2015.
Source: techcrunch.com