Verizon GizmoWatch

Verizon isn’t exactly known as a company with a good reputation for protecting and respecting their user’s privacy. In fact, they’ve actually been kinda awful. There’s the proposed fine from the Federal Communications Commission for failing to protect consumer’s location data (they were accused of selling access to it when they shouldn’t have). There are the reports of them forcing people (even those who opt- out) into letting them look at your browsing history, including the websites you go to, what apps you use, and potentially even who you called or texted. And then there is their terrible stance on net neutrality (the idea that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally, not given special treatment depending on where it comes from). Remember when they got caught throttling the data of California firefighters trying to battle a huge blaze in 2018. Yeah, Verizon isn’t exactly the most trustworthy company when it comes to privacy.

So, when they offer up a Gizmowatch and GizmoHub app for kids that can track them using GPS, uses cellular data to send calls, voice and text messages, as well as track steps and more, we admit, we were skeptical. Why would anyone want to let a company with such a history of privacy violations and bad acting track their young child?

So, are the GizmoWatch and GizmoHub app as bad as we feared? Yes, it seems so. Verizon’s privacy policies (there’s a bunch of them, they do get a little confusing, but hey, they have a page where they happily allow you to “get to know our privacy policies,” so, yay, probably just what you’ve always wanted to do.) say that Verizon can collect a whole lot of personal information and data on you and your child. They say in their Gizmo specific privacy policy they can collect things like your name, mobile telephone number, email address, and your child’s name, age and gender, as well as email address, mobile telephone number, audio and video call and messages sent between your trusted contact and your child. That’s the information they say they collect on you and your kid. Then they add what additional information they collect on your child, which includes device identifiers (such as mobile telephone number), geolocation and audio call usage. messaging usage, the number of steps taken, and text messages exchanged between your child and you and between your child and your trusted contacts. So, the tl;dr of all that is, Verizon collects a lot of information.

And what does Verizon say they can do with this information? Well, they say this, “We use the information we collect to deliver, maintain, support and improve Gizmo services, including to provide you with precise geolocation information for your Gizmo devices, and for analytics. Approximate geolocation identifying an area of approximately 2/3 of a mile radius of your child may also be used by our partner Accuweather to provide weather updates if requested by GizmoWatch Disney Edition and GizmoWatch 2 users.” Which sounds like it might be fine, but also is rather vague. They do also say they can share this personal information with service providers but promise to not allow any of that personal information to be used “for behavioral advertising, to compile profiles, or any other purpose.” That sounds pretty OK. Except, Verizon has been caught in the past collecting or using personal information in ways they said they wouldn’t, so you have to trust Verizon and their service providers and business affiliates to protect and respect you and your child’s personal information. Which might be OK. It also might not be, so please be aware of that.

What’s the worst that could happen with Verizon’s GizmoWatch? Well, if Verizon were to share or sell location information that they said they wouldn’t as they were accused of in the past, that’s probably not personal information you want shared on your or your kid, right? Because no one needs to know where your kid is all the time, except for maybe you and your trusted contacts. And the thought of that data being up for sale on your child 12 and under (or even 13 and up) is pretty dang freaky if you ask us. So, please think carefully before getting one of these smartwatches (or any smartwatch) for your kid.

One final consideration. We think there is a good question to be raised about teaching young children that the level of digital surveillance this smartwatch provides is OK. Maybe we should track kids a little bit less, and teach them constant surveillance isn’t exactly a good thing?