UK-based National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has issued a notice to the popular free lifestyle app, Yellow, for lack of security features to check predation on teenagers.
Yellow, called the Tinder-like app for adolescents, has increasingly grown popular across the world. It has recorded over 5 million registrations since its launch in October 2015. Now, Yellow is receiving flak from parents and child welfare associations for failing to take adequate measures to prevent adults faking age to get in touch with school students.
"Any app that allows strangers to send photos to children or vice versa is troubling – particularly where the images being exchanged are of a sexual nature. And Yellow's settings that enable adults to view children, through a service blatantly aimed at flirting and relationships, also creates an opportunity for sexual predators to target young people. This needs to be urgently addressed," the Telegraph quoted a spokesperson for the NSPCC as saying.
In June, dating app Tinder tightened its security feature and also increased the age limit from 13 to 18 years, thus eliminating any chance of predation on children.
Now, the NSPCC has asked Yellow developers to take similar steps to check creation of fake profiles on their app.
Taking note of the issue, Yellow app creators have identified a loophole in the date of birth section on the app's profile page, and announced the release of a new update to disallow any user, who intends to change the date of birth without proper ID details.
They are also working to bring a verification system, wherein if users finds a profile suspicious, they can report it to the app developers.
Watch this space for more updates.
