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  • 2013-09-30 (xsd:date)
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  • Is the 'Talking Angela' App Unsafe for Children? (en)
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  • Talking Angela is not a web site, but an iOS app available through iTunes that provides a cute interactive feature for youngsters: when children activate the app and respond to prompts to interact with it, Angela, a cat who inhabits an outdoor table at a Parisian cafe, responds to their gestures and mimics what they say back to them in her French-influenced stylings: Talking Angela, like numerous similar apps, can interact with users in several ways: She will repeat, in her squeaky French voice, what users say into their device's microphone; she can (if the device's camera is enabled) read facial expressions and react to them; she moves and gestures in response to being petted or poked via screen taps and swipes; and she can (if Child Mode is disabled) engage users in robotic text chats. Since Talking Angela was released in December 2012, rumors about its supposedly unsafe nature have grown and spread to the point that some of the more far-fetched information now circulating about it claims that the app is being used as a recruiting tool for pedophiles or is driven by hackers who engage children in live conversations: All of this sort of misinformation is completely unfounded. We've spent a good deal of time testing the Talking Angela app, and it has shown no sign of being anything other than what it is supposed to be. Likewise, Sophos' Naked Security site also found warnings that the Talking Angela app is prompting children to behave in ways that raise privacy concerns to br unfounded: Talking Angela is just another entry in a series of similar harmless apps for kids created by the same developer: Yes, Talking Angela can engage in chat with users and upload photos taken through the app to social media, but none of the information revealed in that process in shared with anyone, and the latter occurs only with the user's permission: In all the time we've tried experimenting with Talking Angela app, deliberately trying to prompt it to be provocative (including directly asking it questions of a sexual nature, which it always responded to with a dismissive gesture or text response), we've been unable to reproduce any of the reported salacious behavior attributed to it in various online rumors. Yes, Angela may ask some questions involving the disclosure of personal information during text chats, but those questions are rather innocuous (e.g., What's your name? or How old are you?), the responses aren't forwarded or shared outside the app, and none of this takes place unless Child Mode is specifically disabled. As the Guardian noted about Talking Angela, the one legitimate criticism of the app is that it's too easy to toggle Talking Angela out of Child Mode, thereby enabling it to engage in conversations (about subjects such as dating) that parents may find inappropriate for younger children: (en)
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