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EU Orders Recall of Children's Smartwatch Over Severe Privacy Concerns (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the that's-a-first dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: For the first time, EU authorities have announced plans to recall a product from the European market because of a data privacy issue. The product is Safe-KID-One, a children's smartwatch produced by German electronics vendor ENOX. According to the company's website, the watch comes with a trove of features, such as a built-in GPS tracker, built-in microphone and speaker, a calling and SMS text function, and a companion Android mobile app that parents can use to keep track and contact their children. The product is what most parents regularly look in a modern smartwatch but in a RAPEX (Rapid Alert System for Non-Food Products) alert published last week and spotted by Dutch news site Tweakers, European authorities ordered a mass recall of all smartwatches from end users citing severe privacy lapses. "The mobile application accompanying the watch has unencrypted communications with its backend server and the server enables unauthenticated access to data," said authorities in the RAPEX alert. "As a consequence, the data such as location history, phone numbers, serial number can easily be retrieved and changed." On top of this, authorities also said that "a malicious user can send commands to any watch making it call another number of his choosing, can communicate with the child wearing the device or locate the child through GPS."

6 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Not even half-assed security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How hard is it to use https and prepared statements? (I work in a small company and use prepared statements to prevent accidental SQL injection from a stray quote or similar) Why is the history data editable? Did they just give the app access to the database connection?

    1. Re:Not even half-assed security by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      China doesn't give a fuck about anything. There is one thing China is really good at: Making millions of copies from a design. What they're really NOT good at is designing themselves. Twice so if it's 100% for a foreign market, they don't give even half a shit about anything that doesn't end up in their own country.

      Much like everyone else, when you think about it...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. German manufacturer? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    I thought the watches are already banned in Germany since their law identifies them as covert surveillance devices (which are illegal in Germany... unless you're the government, of course)?

    But it's about effin' time these security nightmares get outlawed. Dear helicopter parents: Fuck you.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Re:"trove" of features by Opportunist · · Score: 3

    So like a phone except you cannot airdrop dick pics?

    Is that a challenge?

    Hold my beer.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. More big government by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oh look big (huge) EU government interfering in the free market. This will solve nothing that the free market wont solve much better.

  5. Theses devices need to be illegal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is zero legitimate reason to put GPS on a child. The people who actually believe these devices can keep their children safe by keeping track of their location are the worst parents on the face of the planet. If you want to keep track of your kids, do it by actually keeping track of your fucking kids! Not putting a pedophile bait device on them. No kid under the age of 16 even needs a cellphone, let alone a stupid smart watch that doesn't even serve a real purpose for adults. They are complete gimmick devices in the first place.