Downloader: SnapScouts might not be real, but the privacy implications are really scary

Friday, July 2, 2010

SnapScouts might not be real, but the privacy implications are really scary

When you first run across SnapScouts, an Android app that offers FourSquare-style badges to kids who snap photos of their neighbors engaging in "suspicious activity," you might think it's for real. I mean, an app that employs children to create a creepy Orwellian police state where people inform on one another, a private company analyzes your photos for evidence of crimes, and privacy is basically obsolete? We're really not so far away from such a point.

This clever bit of software theatre unmasks itself when you start to catch the Orwell references, realize the app (as described) might not be legal, and wonder why it launched on Android, of all platforms? I love Android for a lot of reasons, but is it really the trendy mobile OS for kids these days?

If this app were real, though, it would be outrageous to a lot of people. I found a lot of angry comments from people who didn't know SnapScouts was just a thought-provoking ruse, and they referred to the app as creating "a child Gestapo," among other things. Check out SnapScouts and take away your own lesson from it, but here's mine: although we've gained a lot by openly sharing information about ourselves, it's always important to think about where we want to draw the line with privacy.

Today, it's Facebook. Tomorrow, it could be SnapScouts.