Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame

We're not too worried about the privacy of Sesame Workshop's mental development app for young children. The privacy policy does say that sometimes personal information like name and email might be collected but only with parental consent. And with no behavioral advertising (read, targeted ads) on the platform, parents should be able to breathe a small sigh of relief. Sesame Workshop is an educational non-profit, so they aren't trying to make money off you or your child's data, which is a breath of fresh air.

Our biggest privacy flag for this app is the privacy policy hadn't been updated since 2013, which is a very long time in privacy policy years. We're proud to report that after working with Sesame Workshop, they have now updated their privacy policy, as of June 1, 2022!

As part of their updated privacy policy, Sesame Workshop has now added a way for people to report security vulnerabilities, which was our biggest outstanding security concern. They now meet our Minimum Security Standards. We have to say, we're pleased to see them be responsive to our research and love that they updated their policies. Good work. We feel pretty good now about the privacy and security of this app for children.

What's the worst that could happen? Hopefully nothing more than your child learns how to be a little bit calmer. Calm is good. But we should remind parents that anything that connects to the internet your child plays with has potential vulnerabilities so it's always good to supervise them when they use your devices. And remember parents, please follow the basic guidelines for protecting young children online (please always do this parents and caregivers!), your child's privacy will likely be pretty safe.