1. Read the App Store privacy label
Every app's App Store page has an App Privacy section, filled in by the developer. It sorts data into groups:
- Data Used to Track You: data linked with other companies' data, usually for advertising. For a children's app, you'd hope to see nothing here.
- Data Linked to You: data tied to an account or identity, such as a name, email or usage history.
- Data Not Linked to You: data collected without your identity, such as crash reports.
- Data Not Collected: the developer says the app collects nothing at all.
The label is the developer's own statement, so read it alongside the privacy policy, which the App Store page links to.
2. Check whether it's in the Kids category
Apps in the App Store's Kids category agree to stricter rules from Apple. In short: no third-party advertising or third-party analytics (with narrow exceptions), and links out of the app or chances to buy things must sit behind a parental gate, a little task a young child can't do. The App Store page shows the age band, such as "Ages 5 and under".
3. Ask: does it need an account?
If a picture-book or puzzle app wants your child's name, email, birthday or a sign-up before it works, ask why. Plenty of excellent apps need no account at all. Where an account is needed (for syncing between devices, say), the privacy policy should say what is stored, where, and how to delete it.
4. Watch the permission requests
The iPad asks before an app can use the microphone, camera, location, contacts or photos. A story app that wants your location is a red flag. You can review and switch off permissions any time in Settings › Privacy & Security.
5. Look for AI features, and where the data goes
More children's apps now use AI to write stories, chat or listen. Check whether what your child types or says is sent to an online AI service, who runs it, and whether it is kept. The privacy policy should answer this plainly; if it doesn't, assume it is sent.
6. Try it in Airplane Mode
If the main part of an app works with no internet, much less can leave the device while your child plays. Turn on Airplane Mode in Control Centre and open the app: what still works tells you a lot.
7. Ads, nudges and purchases
- Are there ads, or characters who ask your child to buy things?
- Is the price clear on the App Store page under In-App Purchases? Subscriptions should say so.
- Turn on Ask to Buy in Family Sharing, or limit purchases in Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions.
How Popfables answers the checklist
- Privacy label: Data Not Collected.
- Kids category: yes, ages 5 and under, with a grown-ups gate in front of every purchase and the only link out.
- Account: none. A child's name or nickname is kept on the iPad only.
- Permissions: none. No microphone, camera, location, contacts or photos.
- AI: the stories were written and checked before the app reached you, and the storyteller's voice is made on the iPad. Nothing your child names, chooses or saves is sent to us or to any AI service.
- Airplane Mode: everything works.
- Ads and purchases: no ads. The first book is free; the book Sets are one-time purchases behind the grown-ups gate. No subscription.
The details are in our privacy policy.