Is the Monkey app safe for kids?

Susan Crown

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17 Mar 2024
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No, the Monkey Omegle app is not safe for kids. Due to lax age verification policies, privacy concerns, and persistent issues with harmful and sexual content, using the Monkey app will not keep your children safe online. The broad consensus among authoritative bodies around the globe is that kids should not use the Monkey app.
  • The UK-based Safer Schools safeguarding app released an alert calling Monkey “extremely dangerous.”
  • The US internet safety advocacy group Protect Young Eyes concluded that Monkey “is not safe for kids and should be avoided.”
  • The Washington Post reported that the Monkey app was inappropriate for teens due to sexual content targeting minors.
We tested the app ourselves and were exposed to highly inappropriate sexual content within the first 30 seconds. Here’s a closer look at some of the foundational flaws that make Monkey’s online app so dangerous for kids:

No age verification
Monkey officially requires users to be at least 18 years old to use the app, but there is no age verification process in place. Although people are required to input their date of birth when signing up, nothing is stopping a young child from entering a fake birthdate to access Monkey video chat. This lack of verification means that adults can also manipulate their profiles to make themselves appear much younger than they are and game the algorithm into matching them with young — potentially underage — users. Similar video apps that risk exposure to mature content can be filtered. For example, parents can let kids watch YouTube safely by adjusting parental controls either on the device or within the app itself. Monkey, however, has no such controls, and users cannot know what or who they will see when connecting.

Limited privacy
Monkey is a social network app centered around the sharing of personal information and the lowering of privacy barriers. Quite apart from the fact that you can’t use the app without giving it access to your camera and microphone, it also involves sharing other types of potentially sensitive information, including:
  • Personal information: Registering an account on Monkey requires you to give your name and date of birth, and provide a profile picture — although this can be an anonymous avatar.
  • Automatic information: Both the app and browser version of Monkey automatically pull information about your browser, IP address, and usage data.
  • User-generated content: Although not required, users are encouraged to share personal photos, videos, and screenshots with other users in the form of “moments.”
Social media saturation has most people comfortable with sharing basic personal information online. But the automatic data collection of your IP address is used to display your location to other users. Listing your location as a large city, perhaps for anonymity or privacy reasons, is not possible, as Monkey pulls data from your internet connection and reveals your actual current physical location. The app further compromises user privacy because it cannot guarantee the protection of information against loss, misuse, or alteration. This lax approach to privacy and security exposes users to the risk of data breaches, and it could give hackers easy access to spy on you via a hacked webcam or infect your device with spyware.
 
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