The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is proud to announce the launch of its newest initiative, ACT 4 Apps|Kids; a partnership between ACT and the Parents With Apps community to create industry-leading developer resources for family friendly app makers.
Parents With Apps is an informal group of mom and dad app developers founded – originally as Moms with Apps – to create and promote educational apps they would approve for their own children. Its members are parents first and developers second, a priority that led Parents With Apps to set a high bar for educational content and children’s privacy standards.
ACT’s expertise on privacy issues and its leadership within the app community led Parents With Apps to seek its support to develop privacy measures. The two years that followed were a productive period as the organizations’ collaboration resulted in highly acclaimed initiatives identifying industry best practices, promoting developer education, and producing the first developer-created short form privacy policy – the Kids App Privacy Icons. On Friday, the FTC praised this work in its Mobile Privacy Report highlighting the privacy badge that “combines icons and limited amounts of text” as a model for the industry noting, “Commission staff encourages this kind of innovation.”
The new ACT 4 Apps|Kids initiative will:
- Commit resources for creating or identifying COPPA-compliant tools for children’s education app developers.
- Promote the growth of educational apps, particularly with the move toward One-to-One programs, ensuring that developers can meet or participate in education attainment standards such as Common Core.
- Provide a forum for software firms to share best practices, track trends, standardize designations for software privacy.
- Identify standards of online applications aimed at children globally through networking, education, promotion, templates, tools, registration, and certification.
- Facilitate communication between ACT industry partners and app developers to provide education and guidance on new opportunities.
“ACT is thrilled to join forces with Parents With Apps to create a home for family friendly kids app makers,” said ACT executive director Morgan Reed. “Parents find that their children grasp new concepts more easily on the touchscreens of tablets and smartphones. The intuitive design of these devices makes them accessible to young children who are increasingly engaged by the simple interactivity of education apps. We are proud to launch ACT 4 Apps|Kids to assist developers seeking to build innovative educational resources for mobile devices while meeting high standards for content and child privacy.”
“In a highly regulated environment, kids app developers need a trusted source to turn to,” said Lorraine Akemann of Moms With Apps. “This new organization will help app makers put family first by designing products with privacy in mind. Creating apps for children is about to become the ‘new’ new thing, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”
“By joining forces with ACT, Parents With Apps has the resources and the capacity to provide independent developers proper guidance in a highly regulated environment, and to provide a pathway to turn their ideas into marketable products while minimizing the risk of unintentional legal missteps,” said Scott Weiner of Parents with Apps.
For more information about charter member companies and to keep updated on ACT 4 Apps|Kids events and activity visit us at http://ACT4apps.org/kids.
