Beware! These “social gadgets” carry hidden risks, and many children are using them!

You can add friends by tapping, chat, take photos, and even compete with each other in appearance... The children's smart phone watches on the market, which cost one or two thousand yuan, have gradually become the "social artifact for post-2010s" as their built-in apps become more and more abundant.

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However, some parents said that the overly entertaining functions of such children's smart watches made them feel mixed emotions. Mr. Su, a consumer in Shenzhen, originally planned to buy a 2,000 yuan children's phone watch for his 6-year-old son, but found that the watch had a built-in "PK appearance" app, "using algorithms to define people's appearance without considering the impact on children." At the same time, many parents complained to Nandu reporters that the game apps of phone watches induce consumption, and they are often deducted without knowing it.

"Nowadays, smart watches have more and more functions, so they can't just be managed as a 'watch' and bypass relevant network supervision." Recently, Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, told Nandu and N Video reporters that the name and external form of the terminal are not important, what is more important is its content and function. If a smart phone watch can be used for online payment and playing games, it should be managed as a network terminal like a mobile phone.

01

Excessive entertainment functions cause parents to worry

Nowadays, children's smart phone watches have more and more functions and a wide variety of apps, which makes many parents worry that their overly entertaining functions will have an adverse effect on their children.

Mr. Su lives in Shenzhen. Last September, he took his 6-year-old son to the Xiaotiancai counter to buy a children's smart phone watch. "At that time, I fell in love with a watch that cost nearly 2,000 yuan, but I found that the watch on display actually had a built-in 'take photos with friends to compete for appearance' App. "Mr. Su told the Nandu reporter that in his opinion, this is a completely meaningless function. Using algorithms to define people's appearance and encourage children to compete with each other may subtly instill absurd aesthetics and values ​​in children. "Some phone watches have overly entertaining functions, and they don't even consider what kind of impact it will have on children. "

A reporter from Nandu saw from the App Center of Xiaotiancai's phone watch that the App management within the terminal is divided into age categories. The older the age, the more types of Apps there are. The App Center for those aged 12 and above has as many as 20 Apps, covering stories, music, learning and other categories.

In addition to apps with basic functions, Huawei's children's watches also have music apps such as Kugou, as well as various apps with entertainment elements, such as Farm Defense, Zhizhi Academy, Doudoulong Synchronous Learning, Dream Manor, and Wukong Academy. A staff member of Huawei's offline store told Nandu reporters: "These are all games."

It is worth noting that the built-in games in children's smart phone watches may be designed to be very hidden. Mr. Su told the Nandu reporter that when his child was using the phone watch, he found that he could enter another game application through the second or third level menu of some apps, "similar to the logic of opening a mini program after entering WeChat. If the child does not tell the parents, the parents will hardly know."

When visiting offline stores, Nandu reporters learned that most parents said that the most important functions of smart watches are positioning and making calls. Although some brands can prohibit children from downloading and using entertainment apps through application management settings, the over-entertainment of their content still makes them very worried.

The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee once conducted a survey on the consumption of children's smart watches. The main concern of parents about children's smart watches is that complex functions distract children's attention, accounting for 41.95%; 28.48% of consumers are worried that the complex content of the watch will affect their children's mental health.

Shi Jiayou, a professor at the School of Law of Renmin University of China, told Nandu reporters that in recent years, the social entertainment functions of children's smart phone watches have gradually become a "selling point". Some manufacturers have continuously expanded the boundaries of related functions and tried to turn children's smart watches into miniature mobile phones, which actually deviates from the original intention of the product.

02

Many apps are accused of inducing consumption

A reporter from Nandu learned from the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee that many parents have complained on online platforms that when the parent side of the children's smart watch is bound to the parent side and password-free payment and payment confirmation are not enabled, the children can directly deduct money from the parent side when purchasing game services on the watch side; some game software makes repeated deductions or multiple deductions, etc., and children are easily attracted by advertising push or game content when using them, and even make large recharges.

Many parents believe that the apps in children's smart phone watches are suspected of inducing consumption. On a third-party complaint platform, Nandu reporters found many complaints about the built-in apps in Xiaotiancai phone watches inducing recharge consumption and "automatically" deducting money without parental consent, including apps such as Zhizhi Academy, Dream Manor, and Doudoulong Synchronized Learning. Mr. Su told Nandu reporters that there are many places in the Xiaotiancai phone watch that require paid recharges, including games and audiobook apps. For example, children can listen to one or two episodes of stories first, and the rest must be paid for. "Like the Himalaya App, even if you have already purchased a membership on the mobile phone, you still have to recharge the membership separately on the watch. The two are not universal."

In this regard, the person in charge of Xiaotiancai Phone Watch told the Nandu reporter that the three apps, Zhizhi Academy, Dream Manor, and Doudoulong Synchronous Learning, have all been removed from the shelves. The person in charge said that Xiaotiancai has strict control measures on the applications in the terminal. The built-in apps are mainly concentrated in the categories of life tools and stories, and game apps are not allowed to be settled in; in terms of technical access, all third-party apps in the terminal are not allowed to apply for password-free payment and continuous monthly subscription interface requirements from the payment platform.

In fact, in addition to Xiaotiancai, other brands of children's smart phone watches also face questions and complaints about inducing minors to recharge.

Previously, some consumers claimed that the two apps "Doudoulong Synchronous Learning" and "Brain Master" in 360 children's smart phone watches "automatically" deducted 199 yuan and 99 yuan without the consent of parents and without entering a password. In response, Doudoulong's official Weibo account, Brain Master and 360 children's phone watches all told Nandu reporters that "there is no automatic deduction without scanning the code." 360 children's smart phone watch customer service staff told Nandu reporters that if there are indeed customers reporting "automatic" deductions, they need to further verify whether there are such special circumstances, and then assist customers to contact third-party software to handle refunds.

Recently, Nandu reporters visited Huawei's offline stores for children's watches and tried out built-in apps such as "Wukong Academy" and "Doudoulong Synchronous Learning". They found that most of these clearance games are math problems and knowledge quizzes. The accumulated "gold coins" and other rewards can be used to buy equipment, upgrade ranks, etc. There are also reminders to "become a member and enjoy privileges". Membership rights include knowledge point tests, exclusive science stories, and multidisciplinary resources. After clicking "Open Now", a QR code will appear. You need to use WeChat on your mobile phone to scan it, log in, and then recharge.

In addition, many netizens complained that the Xiaomi Mi Rabbit children's smartwatch app induced children to spend money, with the amount of money deducted ranging from tens to thousands of yuan. Some people said that the app only required scanning a QR code to deduct money directly, resulting in a deduction of 5,970 yuan in a few days.

In this regard, Xiaomi Game Center customer service told the Southern Metropolis Daily reporter that the platform can only assist in processing the refund service for minors whose payees are Xiaomi Games and Beijing Wali Network Technology Co., Ltd. For other platforms, the payees need to contact the corresponding payees for refunds. The Southern Metropolis Daily reporter learned that Beijing Wali Network Technology Co., Ltd. is an affiliated company of Xiaomi Interactive Entertainment, established in June 2009, and mainly engaged in Internet cultural activities, film distribution, application software services, etc.

03

Low-priced watches have large positioning errors

It is understood that there are still many unknown phone watches priced under 100 yuan on the market, and their sales volume is considerable.

Recently, a reporter from Nandu purchased a student phone watch with sales of over 100,000 from an e-commerce platform. The actual price was 25 yuan. The product claims to have multiple functions such as two-way calls, positioning monitoring, photography, and waterproofing.

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Nandu reporters found that the phone watch comes with a free phone card. After scanning the QR code, you will enter a phone charge recharge page, with 99 yuan and 139 yuan recharge packages to choose from, including 100 minutes of calls and dedicated traffic per month. The customer service staff explained that the gift card must be activated and paid according to the instructions before it can be used normally. Once activated, it cannot be refunded. If you don't want to activate your own package, you can also use your own mobile phone card.

Afterwards, the reporter of Nandu opened the back cover of the watch according to the operating instructions and found that the battery of this phone watch, which claims to be waterproof, was only randomly packaged and directly exposed under the back cover. After taking out the battery, the SIM card slot can be seen. In actual measurement, the reporter of Nandu found that the positioning error of this phone watch was large. The watch and the mobile phone were clearly in the same place, but the mobile phone app showed that the watch was located 1.3 kilometers away.

The information security issue of children's smart phone watches has always received widespread attention from the society, and this problem is more common in low-end phone watches.

On March 15 last year, CCTV's 315 Gala exposed a low-profile children's smart watch that could take away multiple sensitive permissions such as positioning, address book, microphone, camera, etc. without user authorization, easily obtaining children's private information and becoming a walking "peeping device."

Later, a consumer reported online that he had purchased the same watch as the one exposed by CCTV and asked the store for a refund but was refused. Recently, a reporter from Southern Metropolis Daily found that the store named "**痛改前非" has been closed.

A survey by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee found that 17.11% of consumers said they had encountered situations where children’s smart watches leaked their personal information.

Engineers from the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute once demonstrated the information security project in children's smart watches. The test found that after entering facial information into the watch, the watch can be unlocked by taking a photo of the entered face with a mobile phone.

Liu Limin, a senior engineer at the Institute of Information Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Nandu reporters that whether the product has the above problems depends on the technology used by the manufacturer. Nowadays, it is not difficult to obtain personal photos, and the device can be unlocked with photos, which not only poses a security risk of device theft, but also storage information leakage.

"If the risks of children's smart devices are exploited by people with ulterior motives, it will cause great harm." Liu Limin gave an example, some networked children's smart devices have the risk of personal data information being leaked, including biometric information, location information, etc. What is even more frightening is the extended problem after the information is leaked. She explained that by analyzing the personal data information stored in children's smart devices, such as location information, chat records, etc., outsiders may be able to grasp the whereabouts of children, which poses a security risk.

04

“It cannot be managed as a mere ‘watch’”

In order to strengthen the management of children's smart watches, Nandu reporters learned that in July 2022, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and other departments jointly held a special campaign "Clear and Bright 2022 Summer Internet Environment for Minors". In addition to strictly controlling the infringement of minors' personal privacy, the special campaign also strengthened the information content management of smart devices such as smart watches, smart speakers, tablets, and early education story machines specifically for minors, thoroughly investigated voice, video, text, pictures, games and other scenes, and comprehensively cleaned up illegal and negative information.

In November of the same year, the national standard GB/T41411-2022 "Children's Watches" (hereinafter referred to as the "Standard") was officially implemented, making relevant provisions for the illegal eavesdropping of children's watches, the leakage of personal information, the system version is too low, the mandatory request for permissions, illegal access control and other issues. For example, it should support the update and upgrade of the operating system of children's smart watches; the user identity should be identified and authenticated, and the identity should be unique, and there should be no duplicate user identity identification; it should provide login failure processing and timeout security processing functions...

"As market demand expands, smart watches have more and more functions. So they can't just be managed as a 'watch' and bypass relevant network supervision." Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, told Nandu reporters that the name and external form of the terminal are not important. What is more important is its content and function. If it can pay online and play games, etc., it should be managed as a network terminal like a mobile phone.

What are the obligations of each party? Shi Jiayou, a professor at the School of Law of Renmin University of China, pointed out that both the manufacturers of children's smart watches and the program developers who provide pre-installed apps should bear their responsibilities. According to the provisions of the "Minors Protection Law" and the "Personal Information Protection Law", both parties have the obligation to provide safety protection for minors. "For example, if non-compliant behavior is found, it must be verified immediately and corresponding measures must be taken, such as requiring rectification or removal from the shelves."

He introduced that according to the Law on the Protection of Minors, manufacturers and sellers of smart terminal products should install software to protect minors online, or inform users in a prominent manner of the channels and methods for installing software to protect minors online. Providers of online games, live broadcasts, online audio and video, online social networking and other network services should set up corresponding time management, authority management, consumption management and other functions for minors to use their services.

When talking about consumption issues such as game recharges for minors, Shi Jiayou said that, **according to the Civil Code, minors under the age of 8 are persons without civil capacity, and the consumption behaviors they implement have no legal effect; **minors over the age of 8 are persons with limited civil capacity, and they can engage in some behaviors that are appropriate to their age and intellectual status or behaviors that are purely for profit, but other consumption behaviors require the consent of their guardians.

Source: Southern Metropolis Daily

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