Kids and apps: exciting and safe fun

The Application Developers Alliance is a supporter of Safer Internet Day. In this blog post, they share their ethos on app development:

Date 2016-02-08 Author Application Developers Alliance
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"Online interactions have been part of kids' everyday lives for a long time now: they learn, gain experience, and discover new things through the internet. What is changing is the way in which children access the internet: this happens more and more through mobile devices and by using mobile software applications. They are becoming familiar with these new technologies and getting smarter and smarter about how to use them. Such a digital revolution requires commitments from all players in order to ensure that younger users benefit from the endless range of opportunities offered by the digital world while also remaining safe.
 
"App developers take younger users and their various needs into great consideration: the selection of available apps is ever widening, ranging from educational apps to game apps, tailored apps and beyond. Developers pay great attention to complying with rules concerning user age, personal data collection and advertisement. In addition, developers often collaborate with each other and the rest of digital industry in order to develop codes of conduct and guidelines that allow them to improve the quality of their apps and safety measures; industry standards and widely adopted rating systems (PEGI – also a SID supporter) are just a few examples of this.
 
"We at the Apps Alliance are proud of the progress made by developers. On the one hand, we do our best to encourage the exchange of best practices between our members and the industry, whilst also representing them in policy discussions. On the other hand, we believe that raising awareness and educating users and also parents, educators and teachers should be a priority. This will improve the level of digital understanding and reduce the digital skills gap. Education and awareness are the most important steps towards a safer internet.
 
"We believe that digital empowerment for people of all ages will create the safest internet environment possible."
 
 

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