Subway Surfers Class Action Alleges App Illegally Collects Children’s Data

UPDATE 3: November 2020, Disney, Viacom, and other mobile app providers agreed to settle the child privacy class action lawsuits. The settlement provides injunctive relief in the form of not collecting data from gamers under a certain age. Click here to learn more.

UPDATE 2: On May 22, 2019, a class action lawsuit alleging that a number of app developers unlawfully scrape data from child video game players will proceed, per a California federal judge’s decision.

UPDATE: On Aug. 3, 2018, a number of app developers including Disney and Viacom argue that class action lawsuits alleging they illegally collect data about children should be dismissed.

Two parents have filed a class action lawsuit alleging that their children’s personally identifying information was collected by game developers in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits the collection of children’s personal information without parental consent.

Plaintiffs Michael McDonald of California and Tamara Draut of New York claim that their children used a mobile app to play Subway Surfers, a game that has reportedly been downloaded more than 1 billion times.

According to the Subway Surfers data collection class action lawsuit, this mobile app collects data from children and sells it to advertisers without obtaining the consent of the children’s parents.

The defendants named in the child data collection class action lawsuit include Kiloo APS, Sybo Games APS, Adcolony Inc., Altaba Inc., Chartboost Inc., Flurry Inc., Inmobi PTE Ltd., Inmobi Inc., IronSource Ltd., IronSource USA Inc., Tapjoy Inc., and Vungle Inc.

Kiloo and Sybo are the game developers, and the other named defendants are software companies that allegedly developed the code in the Subway Surfers game that collects children’s personal information, the Subway Surfers data collection class action lawsuit says.

“Children’s personal information is captured from them, as is information of their online behavior, which is then sold to third parties who track multiple data points associated with a personal identifier,” the Subway Surfers class action lawsuit alleges. “The developer defendants have failed to safeguard children’s personal information and ensure that third-parties’ collection of data from children is lawful.”

McDonald and Draut allege they downloaded the Subway Surfers game between 2014 and 2016, and their children played the game often. They claim that the game features a “youthful hooligan” as a protagonist, the game is marketed as being suitable for users under the age of 13, and the Better Business Bureau in 2015 found that the game was targeted toward children. These factors all clearly show that the Subway Surfers game was meant to be used by children, McDonald and Draut assert in the data collection class action lawsuit.

“Most consumers, including parents of children consumers, do not know that apps created for children are engineered to surreptitiously and unlawfully collect the child-users’ personal information, and then exfiltrate that information off the smart device for advertising and other commercial purposes,” the Subway Surfer data collection class action lawsuit alleges.

McDonald and Draut assert that the software developers should have known that their code was being used in a children’s game and that it was collecting children’s data without notifying their parents.

The plaintiffs are represented by Michael W. Sobol, Nicholas Diamond, Douglas I. Cuthbertson and Abbye R. Klamann of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and Hank Bates, Allen Carney and David Slade of Carney Bates & Pulliam PLLC.

The Subway Surfers Unlawful Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Michael McDonald, et al. v. Kiloo APS, et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-04344, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.