NY-AG v. Saturn Technologies

Saturn Technologies allegedly failed to protect young users’ privacy. According to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) investigation, the company failed to verify users’ school email and age to ensure they were high school students and allowed users from different high schools to interact with each other. Saturn Technologies also allegedly made email-based user verification optional and did not notify users of the change or modify the safety promises it had previously made. Saturn Technologies allegedly turned off user verification for more than 4,000 high schools between 2021 and 2023, allowing anyone to join the students’ high school community and access their schedules and other personal information. OAG also determined that Saturn Technologies did not screen new users based on birth date to confirm that they were high school-aged until August 2023; promoted its app through other high school students without disclosing that they were compensated for their promotions; made a copy of users’ contact books and continued using the copies even if the user changed their phone settings to deny the app access to their contact book; and failed to keep sufficient records regarding data privacy, data permissions, user verification, and user privacy.

Summary generated from official New York Attorney General press release