Buddy.ai, the world’s first conversational AI tutor for kids, today announces it was recently recognized as officially fully compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as certified by the kidSAFE Seal Program. This means that the parents of Buddy’s 20 million annual users can rest assured that learning English with Buddy is a safe and privacy-friendly choice.
This news comes at a time when online safety and privacy are top of mind for many parents as generative AI chatbots become more readily available. Concerns include exposure to inappropriate content, misinformation due to hallucinations, dangerous parasocial relationships, and the lack of privacy and data protections.
Because AI tools are dependent on data, off-the-shelf platforms are designed to collect as much as possible. In fact, the creation of these tools has required ingesting so much data, they are already hitting availability roadblocks.
But for minors, some user data cannot be collected without parental consent. When consent is obtained, collected data is still subject to strict storage and handling requirements. This is why even the most popular voice assistants struggle to understand children – they can’t safely collect the needed training data (children’s voices) on their platforms.
Designing an effective, speech-based interactive tutor for children, then, required Buddy.ai to build its proprietary full stack AI technology from the ground up. This process required a team of speech technology experts over four years of development and $13 million in VC fundraising. The success of this bespoke approach is today reflected in over 50M downloads of the app since launch.
In response to their recent COPPA-certification, Buddy.ai’s CEO and Co-founder Ivan Crewkov said, “My co-founder and I created Buddy with the goal to help our own children learn English. When we started, we could not have imagined the scale of development ahead of us. Although this was a lengthy and challenging process, attaining kidSAFE and COPPA compliance was important to us as parents — we wanted to build AI technology that prioritized safety and privacy complemented by design.”
Shai Samet, Founder and President of the kidSAFE Seal Program, echoed Ivan’s comments by saying, “Ivan and the Buddy.ai team have demonstrated from day one of our work together that they are serious about the well-being of their users, and will take every reasonable measure to create an enjoyable, yet highly ethical play and learning experience for children. We are proud to have them as a member in our program and are confident they will continue to innovate responsibly in our niche industry.”
Buddy.ai’s privacy policy and data security practices can be found on its website, but in brief the kidSAFE COPPA certification signifies:
- Children’s privacy is protected: Buddy.ai follows strict rules to keep kids’ personal information safe. Its entire stack of AI technology was built in-house to avoid sharing data with any vendors or third-parties.
- No sneaky data collection: Personal user information is not tracked or shared without clear parental consent. If allowed by parents, Buddy.ai collects speech data, which is used to further improve Buddy.ai’s AI technology, advancing its educational mission.
- A trustworthy platform: kidSAFE and COPPA compliance requires meeting high standards for online child safety and privacy.
To learn more about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, you can visit the FTC’s frequently asked questions page found here.
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