Nowadays, a new generation of toys has features that include realistic responses to children’s questions. By using big data/machine learning inspired approaches (e.g. advanced analytics, natural language processing), talking toys are able to capture what the child says and respond accordingly. In order to make this possible, these toys have to record the responses of the child, send it to a cloud-based server and receive instructions back. While Mattel (e.g. leader in the global toy industry) claims that these recordings are primarily owned by the company, there is an increasing risk of privacy violations. How about the other partners that work together with Mattel to make this possible?
The toy industry is different from other industries. First, there is a lot of uncertainty around the success of new products. Therefore, it is almost impossible to predict whether a particular toy would be liked by children. Second, as toy sales are seasonal, most of the toy companies try to sales their toys in the third and last quarter of the year. Third, manufacturing is often outsourced to low cost environments which makes it difficult to control quality. Consecutively, the short life cycle of toys drives the need for innovation, research and aggressive marketing campaigns. However, should toy manufacturers be able to use the input from talking toys for their marketing campaigns?
From my point of view, parents have to be cautious of buying talking Interned-connected toys. Talking toys are constantly in listening mode, meaning that data can be easily spread and illegally accessed by individuals with other intentions. To prevent unauthorized recording of a child’s conversation, toy manufacturers have to grant consumers the option to turn off continuous listening. Also, sensitive information stored in the database at Mattel needs to be deleted and not be made accessible to other third parties that can use it for marketing purposes. To conclude, I believe that the government has to set up data privacy rules for the toy industry to secure sensitive data from children.
What do you think about Big Data in the toy industry? Should parents become more cautious with regard to buying talking toys for their children?
Share your opinion!
Sources:
- Bartlett, C. A., Ghoshal, S., & Beamish, P. W. (2008). Transnational management: Mattel and the toy recalls (5th ed). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
- Big Data and Children. (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.kdnuggets.com/2016/03/nurture-big-data-children.html
- Clarck, B. (2015). Here’s why privacy experts are concerned about Mattel’s new Hello Barbie.Retrieved from: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/11/28/are-connected-toys-just-a-ruse-to-gather-marketing-data/
- Millar, S.A., Marshall, T.P., & N.A. Cardon. (2017). The Toy Association Privacy & Data Security: New Possibilities and Perils Retrieved from: https://www.toyassociation.org/App_Themes/toyassociation_resp/downloads/research/whitepapers/white-paper-data-privacy.pdf
Hi Nina Miroshnichenko
I really like your post. Primarily because it encompasses a products which is well know by almost everybody. Almost everybody has some sort of memory of playing with toys, which really attracted me to read your blog post. In addition to this you also mentioned two major technological trends which are machine learning and cyber security.
I am personally not a big fan of big data in the toy industry. Children and their parents who buy the toys are not expected to be cyber security experts. This makes them an attractive and vulnerable target for hackers. In addition to this toy manufacturers do not have as much of an commitment to cyber security like major tech firms, making toys even more attractive to hackers. There have already been toy related-cyber attacks in the past, like Vtech who announced in 2015 that one of it’s databases was hacked leaking information of 6 million children who used it’s toys (CBC, 2016). And recent trends show that cyber attackers are constantly developing new tools and techniques, which existing systems are not custom to, in order to infiltrate cyber defences (Giles, 2018). Therefore I believe big data in the toy industry should be kept at a minimum.
Here are the sources I used that you might find interesting to read!
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609641/six-cyber-threats-to-really-worry-about-in-2018/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/connected-toy-security-1.3431633
Again great post, thank you!
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Thank you for your interesting blog post Nina. I agree on the importance of realising that companies are able to generate data through the toys they sell. However, in my opinion it should not be possible to do this through talking toys that cannot be ‘turned off’ by customers. Also I agree on your statement that sensitive data that is stored needs to be deleted. A trust problem may arise here, is Mattel able to guarantee that no sensitive data are stored and that they will not share the gathered data with third parties? This may become a widely known issue in the near future, when customers become more aware of the risks of talking toys.