Internet watchdog claims Google is spying on kids

FORT MYERS, Fla.- A internet watchdog is claiming that Google is spying on underage kids and collecting their information through their Chrome operating system.

Google Chromebooks are all the rage in new school technology. So much so, they’re handed out to students at Lee County schools.

Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a complaint, Tuesday with the Federal Trade Commission asking them to take action and stop Google from collecting students personal information.

Computer Engineer and Owner of Area 51 PC, Shaun Book says it’s a serious accusation.

“Their claim is that they’re taking underage children information such as emails and activities online and harvesting that information.”

Book says that kind information would be lucrative.

“Statistics say from five years old through the age of 16, oh my goodness, now they know what kinds of cars you like, particular brands of clothing, maybe even what you like to eat and drink,” said Book. “These companies are trying to build what I would foresee as a very profitable and large consumer base that has yet to even com into the market.”

Google and other companies signed the “student privacy pledge” last year which is supposed to guarantee they won’t gather your kids info for advertising purposes. The pledge does allows companies to collect some information for other reasons like scanning for viruses, spyware, and also spell-check.

Google maintains that they’ve done nothing wrong saying “our services enable students everywhere to learn and keep their information private and secure.”

Book says if the claims about Google are true, they’re crossing the line.

“It comes down to the privacy of our children and being a father myself, I don’t want anybody essentially spying on the locations of my children, what schools they’re going to, what applications, what foods they like to eat and drink,” says Book. “To me as a father myself, that can be kind of alarming because you don’t know, it’s kind of a kooky world out there now and you just never know who’s actually harvesting it because Google is not necessarily coming out and saying who or whom is seeing this information.”

WINK News reached out to Lee County School District to see if they were aware of the accusations, they sent this statement in response:

“We are aware of the news reports that were generated by the electronic frontier foundation’s complaint to google. At this time we have no evidence to suggest that google has violated the federal student privacy pledge, their own terms of service , service level agreements, or federal privacy statutes. Naturally, we will monitor the progress of the complaint as it moves through the federal review process.”

-Amity Chandler,
Director of Communications, Public Relations and Marketing