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Digital-safety advocates take aim at Apple’s App Store age ratings

MacDailyNews

Dec 23

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Over a period of 24 hours, a report by the child safety advocacy nonprofits Heat Initiative and ParentsTogether Action claims that in Apple’s App Store, researchers found about 200 apps with inappropriate content that were rated for children. Those included apps for dieting, circumventing banned sites, beauty filters, violent or sexual games, and anonymous chat.

Aaron Tilley for The Wall Street Journal:
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While Apple leaves it to app developers to determine the appropriate age rating for their apps, the company said it reviews and regularly rejects apps for including content and features that don’t align with the rating. Apple guidelines for different age categories — including 4 and above, 9 and above, and 12 and above—restrict apps from featuring violence, language and other suggestive content.
The company said it has rejected more than 100,000 app submissions in the past five years for violating guidelines related to age ratings. “At Apple, we work hard to protect user privacy and security and provide a safe experience for children,” a spokesman said, adding that it gives parents a range of capabilities to protect children, including restricting access to apps and flagging problematic content…
The company employs an App Store review team, which is composed of several hundred reviewers who work long hours and struggle to keep up with the large numbers of apps coming in everyday, according to former employees of the team. Apple expects its review team to move quickly through a certain number of apps a day, making it difficult to spot potential problems, the former employees said.
Heat Initiative’s biggest backers are the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and the Oak Foundation, two philanthropic organizations focusing on childhood-health and social-justice issues.
One recommendation the report from the Heat Initiative and ParentsTogether makes is that Apple should apply an independent expert review and verification process for the age ratings of App Store apps, similar to how movies and videogames are rated based on age appropriateness. This approach would give parents who want to rely on these age ratings more confidence in their accuracy, advocates said.

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MacDailyNews Take: The system for App Store age ratings – submitted by developers and reviews by App Store reviewers who may not have enough time (as they’re subject to Apple’s app review quotas) – could certainly be improved.

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