Applications to control minors' mobile phones, how much surveillance is appropriate?

“The difference about this

app

is that it uses AI (artificial intelligence) to monitor the images that [the teenager] consumes, the texts he reads and what he writes,” says psychologist Alicia González, an

influencer

with half a million followers, on Instagram.

followers, in a video paid for by Bosco, a parental control

app

that has just arrived in Spain.

“But you do not have access to all of their communications and their entire internet history, you will only receive an alarm if they receive offensive messages and see images of inappropriate content,” adds González.

Bosco promises a report each night with a “summary” of the activity, but without parents “seeing the content.”

What the

app

sees and does with that data is another question.

EL PAÍS has asked González if he has valued this detail in his collaboration with Bosco, but no response has been received before the publication of this article.

A standard rate for a promotional video like the one he has made, with that number of followers, is usually paid around 5,000 euros, although it can vary.

Parental control applications allow you to remotely monitor what is happening on a teenager's mobile phone.

There are all kinds, more or less intrusive, both in the privacy of minors' lives and in their data.

Millions of parents around the world use one of these applications.

Experts believe that its usefulness decreases as the child ages and that there is no single solution that works for all cases.

But right now, with the authorities acting on all fronts against cell phones, they are an increasing resource.

“We perceive more supply of these

apps

because there is greater demand in the market, motivated by the fact that mobile phones are used more and more and in more diverse areas,” explains Jorge Flores, founder of the organization Screens Amigas, which promotes healthy technology. .

More information

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The variety in the offering of these applications is enormous.

“There are certainly plenty of parental control

apps

being developed to help keep children safe online.

What is worrying is how they are designed and sold,” says Karla Badillo-Urquiola, professor at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA).

The most popular program is Family Link, from Google, which, for example, allows you to establish permitted use times and forces parents to authorize the download of applications.

“There are details that are not so much an invasion,” Flores acknowledges.

"Screen time gives information to the young person himself: 'Today 3 hours on Instagram, let's see if I slow down.'

Some schedules help to manage, to prioritize.

An automatic system that reduces time, even if you know that your parents are behind it, helps reduce daily negotiation clashes, which wear down and undermine the communication relationship,” he adds.

Spy on the minor

But the variety of control options allows us to find even tools that come close to espionage – without consent – ​​on minors.

In response, teenagers use a whole range of methods and alternatives to avoid surveillance: from creating parallel accounts, using uncontrolled browsers or speaking in code.

The digital knowledge of some young people to circumvent surveillance is admirable.

One father describes how his son overcame Family Link surveillance in a review on the app store: “I have been able to verify that with the

Duolingo [language learning]

app

my son has been able to open a Chrome browser, without “no type of control, entering as a Facebook user,” he explains.

“These methods do not really contribute to the development of resilience and skills in children and families”

Jun Zhao, University of Oxford

Today the main objective is to limit mobile phone use among adolescents.

But experts agree that focusing on control is not a good solution in the long run: “The trend in the market is focused on solutions based on control and monitoring, which have been shown to do little to ensure online security.” of minors and do not help them learn about the risks,” warns Jun Zhao, senior researcher at the University of Oxford.

“These methods also do not really contribute to the development of resilience and skills in children and families,” she adds.

This tendency to control does not mean that the tools are useless or should disappear.

Combining it with other methods, especially in the company of teenagers, can give good results: “Parents should talk honestly with their children,” says Tiffany Ge Wang of the University of Oxford.

“Listening and understanding can make a difference.

“We have seen cases where using technological tools, along with regular family communication, works better than simply setting limits on screen time and permitted activities,” she adds.

Families sometimes try to achieve something with parental control that parents themselves are unable to achieve: reasonable use of the mobile phone.

“Minors perceive that their parents' preferential control is restrictive, orderly, and that it is a style for which they do not set an example,” says Beatriz Feijóo, professor at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR).

“The first ones who should reflect on the use of mobile phones and networks are adults and what an example we set for minors.

The most opportune mediation is the active one, what happens is that it is much more complex.

The installation of

apps

is short-term, active mediation has a long-term perspective, because it encourages work at a critical and ethical level and requires a lot of interaction with minors.”

There are no miracles, yes browns

Without agreement, problems can multiply, not only within the family.

They are delicate issues with very complex ethical implications: “Espionage without consent is not the way,” explains Flores.

“Trust is not built.

I came across the case of a mother who, by spying on her daughter, had discovered a critical situation for a friend of her daughter.

She was getting into a big mess and her mother was faced with the dilemma of keeping quiet and assuming responsibility or intervening and giving herself away.

I told him that the problem was his.

This is not technology, it is a dilemma of a different kind.”

Using apps, along with regular family communication, works better than simply setting limits on screen time

Tiffany Ge Wang, University of Oxford

There are parents who believe that these

apps

with artificial intelligence can work miracles: “Does this application [BoscoApp] know how to decipher when teenagers speak in code to try to deceive?” a mother asks

influencer

Alicia González on Instagram.

“Mmmmm, I guess it figures something out,” González responds optimistically.

Artificial intelligence does more and more things, but in the field of parental control applications they can be a problem: “AI is seen as a potential solution to detect risks on the internet,” says Badillo-Urquiola.

“Many of these

apps

use AI to detect inappropriate language or images, but the inaccuracy and biases of these algorithms can be harmful.

The concern is that AI needs tons of data to train well, so accuracy depends on collecting intimate data from teenagers.

“Then the concern is who has access to this data and what they do with it.”

Invasion of privacy

The invasion of privacy can lead to young people becoming victims of data collected by platforms.

“It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of

apps

seek to generate profits by collecting user data to show them personalized ads,” says Álvaro Feal, researcher at Northeastern University (Boston, USA) and co-author of a study on the privacy of 46 parental control

apps

with more than 20 million downloads.

“Therefore, the use of these

apps

, which by definition need to have access to a large amount of personal data, carries risks.

In our study we saw that the majority (72%) of the

apps

analyzed shared data with third-party companies.

Even a smaller number of apps (11%) were sending unencrypted data.

In some cases, this data is as sensitive as the location of the minor,” he explains.

There is a curious contradiction that while parents want to protect their children from the evils of the Internet, they make them vulnerable through some of these

apps

that are only a channel to obtain information from minors and future consumers: “When children connect, whether through their mobile phones, tablets or voice assistants, their data is constantly being collected, analyzed and processed by a lot of companies.

This allows these companies to send you personalized game promotions or advertisements.

People don't realize how data is handled across all platforms, allowing these digital companies to have a much more complete picture of our children than we could ever imagine.

This knowledge is often abused to prolong the time children spend online and expose them to less appropriate content,” warns Professor Jun Zhao.

Minors are increasingly aware of the use of their data by these companies, according to researchers at the University of Oxford: “Our research has shown that children in the United Kingdom, from the age of 10, are already beginning to take control of their data, and even show something like data activism, demanding more transparency and access.

This demand for autonomy over their data is even stronger in the older kids we have worked with,” says researcher Tiffany Ge Wang.

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