The Human Right Watch report examined 164 educational tech tools and websites used in 49 countries and found that 89% of the apps “appeared to engage in data practices that put children’s rights at risk.” Some of those apps were found to be sharing that data with marketers and data brokers.
The researchers added that “these products monitored or had the capacity to monitor children, in most cases secretly and without the consent of children or their parents, in many cases harvesting data on who they are, where they are, what they do in the classroom, who their family and friends are, and what kind of device their families could afford for them to use.” Some of that data was sent to companies including Google and Facebook, according to the report.
This includes apps which students were required to use by their schools, says Human Rights Watch. Families often lacked the ability to opt out of remote learning apps with poor privacy policies.