South Korea Bans Child Monitoring App
The South Korean government has banned the use of a mobile phone app that monitors social media activities of parents' children. Government officials say that the app, called Smart Sheriff, has been removed from Google's Play store because of safety issues.
In April South Korea's government passed a law in which all smartphones sold to teenagers under 18 must have a monitoring software installed with which parents can find out where there children are and what they are doing. Smart Sheriff, an app approved by the government, became extremely popular and rose to the number one spot quickly. The app aims at keeping young adults and children safe from pornography , bullying and other dangers on the Internet.
Recently, software experts have found out that the app has security risks that may invite hackers to get into mobile phones and use personal information that is stored there. The app's makers were given time to fix their software but apparently failed to make Smart Sheriff safe enough to use. The government then decided to ban the software completely, but they admit that there is no way of knowing whether other software companies also have security problems in their apps.
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Words
- activity = something that you do
- admit = to agree that something is true
- aim = to try to reach something
- apparently = if you are not sure about something
- approve = accept
- ban = to forbid
- fail = not succeed; not make something work
- government = the people who rule a country
- invite = let in
- monitor = watch
- number one spot = top of the list
- official = someone who is in a higher position in the government
- popular = well-known, liked by many
- recently = only a short time ago
- safety issue = here: problems that may lead to a da ngerous situation
- security risk = here: the app is not safe enough
- store = save