Proposta de ferramenta de controle parental para brinquedos inteligentes baseada em regras de privacidade

ALBUQUERQUE, Otávio de Paula. Proposal of a parental control tool for smart toys based on privacy rules. 2020. 162 p. Dissertation (Master of Science) – School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, 2020. With the insertion of the world in the digital age, intelligent toys emerged. A smart toy consists of a physical device connected with mobile services over wireless networks, providing the child with more interactive play. However, with smart toy, questions arose from parents and researchers about the risks that such toys may offer. The biggest concerns in the area are related to the great data collection capacity that a smart toy has, and to the user being a child who generally does not understand or have little concern for their own security and privacy. There are tools such as parental control being developed by the community, which aim to provide functionalities that assist parents in preserving children’s security and privacy through access control. However, the tools available on the market have not kept up with the needs of recent technological changes in today’s computing environments. In the toy computing environment, this becomes more evident because most mobile services linked to toys are context sensitive, that is, they need to collect data to provide 100% of their services. In addition to the main access control features, there is a need to implement complementary features that assist parents in decision-making and understanding related to the environment, making them aware of the consequences of accessing data, the risks that involve the environment, and providing easy access to content related to the protection of children’s data, etc. In order to establish a proposal for a parental control tool for smart toys based on privacy rules, a set of requirements was identified with 19 functional and 18 non-functional, considered desirable for this type of tool. A conceptual model of the tool was also created, in which an overview of its functionalities is presented. Based on the model, a functional prototype of the tool was then implemented. The requirements and the prototype were assessed, through a survey, as to how important of the requirements for a parental control tool and how satisfactory with their implementation in the prototype. The analysis of the results of the responses of 10 specialist researchers in the area was carried out quantitatively and qualitatively. In the quantitative analysis it was confirmed that the requirements are considered important to compose the tool, being non-functional, in general averages, more relevant; besides demonstrating expressive results related to the evaluation of the prototype. For the qualitative analysis, the content of the subjective responses regarding the suggestions for new requirements ideas and recommendations for improving the prototype was analyzed. It is intended to provide a model of parental control tool to serve as a basis for smart toy companies to develop their tools, in addition to contributing to the advancement of research in the area of smart toys, mainly related to privacy and security issues.