Germany has banned kids’ smartwatches because they could be used to spy on a child’s environment and listen in on school classrooms.
The smartwatches were banned by Germany’s telecommunication agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, and the agency has asked parents to destroy the watches if their children have them, BleepingComputer reported.
The agency also has asked schools to look for the watches, which are marketed to children ages 5 to 12 and allow parents to secretly listen to their child’s environment via an app.
It is against German law to listen in on phone conversations, which is also possible through the smartwatches.
In February, the Bundesnetzagentur banned an interactive doll from being sold because it used technology to listen to a child’s environment, which could affect its programming.
The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) recently warned smartwatches equipped with GPS could be hacked and reveal a child’s location, and that the GPS location could be spoofed with the watches’ technology.
Twitter users offered a way to fix the problem and called the ban “interesting” and “unprecedented.”
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