Discovering True Kids Mobile Behavior

The mobile world has freed individuals from many physical constraint, but has also added degrees of freedom that might amplify privacy and security problems, especially for a critical part of the population: underage children. How much of this freedom is a risk for our kids? The problem is that we do not really know yet the answer to this question. Knowing what kids really do with their smartphone is not an easy task: we can try to get a grasp of their actions using questionnaires, but this introduces bias when trying to measure inappropriate behavior, even more in the kids world due to additional factors like shame. In this paper we report on an attempt to shed light on this problem, and to delve deep into the true world of kids. We first state what the problems are when trying to analyze their mobile behavior, identify the critical technical challenges, and show that there is also a number of non-technical challenges making up for a significant barrier. We then design and implement a system able to overcome a good number of these challenges, and effectively study the unfiltered behavior of kids in the mobile world, and so to check the potential risks for privacy and security during their mobile interactions. A large pool of kids is then studied, shading new light on the potentially dangerous zones that underage kids cross every day, and showing how truly dangerous the mobile environment, in its present technological and social shape, is for our children.