Hello-Barbie

And you thought all you had to worry about was your Samsung TV or refrigerator spying on you?

Well, Hello Barbie is also listening in.

Via Investor’s Business Daily:

Hello Barbie says, “Privacy breach” to plaintiffs in a lawsuit that’s testing the boundaries of security in the Internet of Things age.

Mattel (MAT), the maker of the interactive doll, is among those being sued on grounds that the doll picks up and records the voices of the children who play with the doll, voices that it uploads and stores without parental consent.

The unusual case was filed in December in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Other defendants include San Francisco-based ToyTalk, which partnered with Mattel to produce the doll; and Los Angeles-based Samet Privacy, which does business as the kidSAFE Seal Program that lists, reviews and certifies interactive and online products as compliant with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.

“The problem is parents and children don’t really know that ToyTalk is going to use their child’s conversation for data mining and other purposes not fully disclosed,” said Steve Teppler of the Abbott Law Group in Jacksonville, Fla. “They say they’ll protect the child of the purchasing parent’s identity, but what about friends’ children?

….On its website, kidSAFE describes Hello Barbie as “the first
fashion doll that can have a two-way conversation with girls. The doll features speech recognition and progressive learning features that enable girls to engage with Barbie like never before. Hello Barbie features more than 8,000 lines of dialogue, inspires imagination and storytelling, plays more than 20 interactive games, and tells jokes.”

Although Hello Barbie must be registered to activate, and the registration process includes information relating to privacy, plaintiffs argue that Hello Barbie will pick up voices of a child’s friends, and those voices will be uploaded and stored without parental knowledge, let alone consent….

Related:

CBN News: US Government Can Spy on You, Through Your Fridge

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1 Comment | Leave a comment
  1. Maynard says:

    I never thought I’d see the day when we could really build Mudd’s women or even Mudd’s wife.

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