Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame

First reviewed April 20, 2022. Review updated, April 25, 2023
Unfortunately, the changes Sesame Workshop has made to their privacy policy since we last reviewed them leave us feeling a bit like Oscar the Grouch. Grumble grumble grumble. That's the bad news. The good news is, this app is still probably pretty OK from a privacy perspective as it doesn't seem to collect much, if any, personal information. That leaves us with a conundrum. We have a good app, with a bad privacy policy.

When we first reviewed Sesame Workshop's Breath, Think, Do app in 2022, we found a few concerns -- their privacy policy was last updated in 2013, we couldn't confirm they meet our Minimum Security Standards, and no one responded to the questions we sent to the email address listed in their privacy policy for privacy related questions. After publishing our review, Sesame Workshop reached out to us and made some important changes to their privacy and security practices. They acknowledged no one had been monitoring the privacy question email address, and said they would fix that. They established an email for people to report security vulnerabilities in their apps, and they updated their privacy policy. We were quite happy with how willing they were to improve their privacy and security practices.

Unfortunately, in 2023 Sesame Workshop has updated their privacy policy to one that leaves us with some pretty serious concerns. In fact, this app, and all apps covered by Sesame Workshop's privacy policy, now earn our *Privacy Not Included warning label. The things that concerns us most are the fact that they clearly state in their privacy policy they can collect data on you from data brokers and other third party sources, "We may receive Personal Information about you from other sources, including our data broker services, data enhancement companies, list rental services, third-party analytics providers, and social media-owned databases..." They go on to say they can use all this information they collect about you to make inferences about you "to generate information about your likely preferences or other characteristics." Uhg...comes on Sesame Workshop! Can't you just let us play with Elmo and the gang without trying to know our "characteristics"? Is nothing sacred anymore!

We're also bummed because it was unclear to us if all users, regardless of where they live, could have their data deleted. In fact, they state, "No matter where you are located, we provide every user with the right to: Erasure. It’s your right to request that we erase your Personal Information, under certain conditions." Sounds good right? Until you ask, well, what are these mysterious "certain conditions?" And then there's the use of the words "right to request". We know anyone can request anything. We would much rather see this worded in a way that makes it clear all requests will be honored.

Anyway, the good news is, the Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame app itself doesn't require a log in to start using, so it is likely not collecting much or any personal information at all. So, you are probably safe from the concerns we've outlined about the privacy policy that covers this app. However, it is really disappointing to see something so beloved as Sesame Street lean into the data collection, combination, and inference trends chipping away at our privacy everywhere on the internet these days.

Read our 2022 review:

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! 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.

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