New rules On Children’s Apps by Apple

By: Zain Nabi  |   August 17th, 2013   |   Apple, Mobile Apps, News

Children under the age of 13 need to get permission from their parents before buying any application from the App store, according to the new privacy guidelines of Apple. Apple has introduced new apps for children in its new iOS 7 but these apps contain some rules this time. According to these rules the kids under the age of 13 need to accept privacy policies on advertising and using of in-app in iOS apps.

 

These rules are applied after a number of stories about children buying apps without the permission of their parents, resulting in big bills. The new guidelines of Apple cover the following key points:

 

24.1
Apps primarily intended for use by kids under 13 must include a privacy policy.

 

24.2
Apps primarily intended for use by kids under 13 may not include behavioral advertising (e.g. the advertiser may not serve ads based on the user’s activity within the app), and any contextual ads presented in the app must be appropriate for kids.

 

24.3
Apps primarily intended for use by kids under 13 must get parental permission or use a parental gate before allowing the user to link out of the app or engage in commerce.

 

24.4
Apps in the Kids Category must be made specifically for kids aged 5 and under, 6-8, or 9-11.

 

These rules are not  a big surprise for many; a lot of children after reading the new privacy policies implemented parental gates in their iOS apps, so that they can easily buy the apps of their choice.

 

Clause 24.4 as compared to other clauses is somewhat interesting: according to this clause the new kid’s category on Apple iOS 7 is structured in three different age groups. Apple in its WWDC conference announced a new category in June and will be introduced iniOS 7 soon in this autumn.

 

The kids apps section contains a number of applications for kids from the major brand-owners including Disney, Baby TV, the BBC or the Nickelodeon. The kids can find their favorite apps from Books, Education, Games and Entertainment categories easily and effectively.

 

According to the recent survey from UK telecoms, about 91% children either use tablets or smartphone of their parents or have one of their own while 41% kids use these devices every day.