(Orange City)– A scheduling app designed for students is raising some eyebrows and suspicions with the sheriff of one northwest Iowa county. Sioux County Sheriff Jamie Van Voorst says he thinks parents should be extra aware of some serious privacy issues for kids in the “Saturn-Time Together” app…
“The initial concerns were that there was a lot of privacy concerns.”
He says he decided to try it out as if he were a scammer or predator, and see if the app would grant him, or anyone else, access to information that shouldn’t be public…
“I thought you know, I’m going to just give it a shot. And so I actually tried it. When I tried it, now I’ve been told since there may have been a few changes, but I have not bothered to verify that, I just haven’t had time. But I was able to get in there and pretty much look at other kids’ profiles, pictures, there was direct messages I could send, and I just thought, you know, this is maybe something that if I was a parent, I would want to be aware of it if I had kids that age in school.”
He says people don’t always realize how vulnerable they are…
“Young kids think that what they put online is pretty benign and I don’t blame them. I mean that’s their world. But too predators, if they want to find out information, that was a real easy avenue to make available to them if they wanted to spend a little time doing that and I just thought, you know, it bears educators and parents, just their awareness on this that this is out there. I do hope that the developers catch on and tighten things down secure-wise. That was kind of my goal, I guess.”
He advises parents to take the time to check out the apps that their children want to use and see how safe they really are.
(Courtesy Community First Broadcasting station KIWA in Sheldon)
