Bark continuously monitors online interactions to provide parents, guardians, and teachers with email and/or text alerts when potential online dangers (such as cyberbullying) or potential signs of trouble (such as depression) are identified in email or text messages and/or interactions with designated social media sites or websites involving registered children or students. Bark's terms require parents and teachers to authorize Bark to access, monitor, review, and store all online interactions and other communications to and from registered child and student accounts. Bark's terms state they may collect all personal and non-personal usage information provided by the registered child or student account that includes, but is not limited to first and last name, email address, contacts, connections, payments, messages, location information, and other communications.
In addition, Bark's terms state they have adopted technical and organizational measures to preserve and protect users' personal information that the service monitors from unauthorized use or access and from being altered, lost or misused. Lastly, the terms state users have the right to access, rectify, erase, block and oppose any processing of their personal data that Bark has collected.
Bark can be accessed through its website, and is available for download at the iOS App Store, and the Google Play Store. In addition, Bark is available through the Google G-Suite Marketplace. The Privacy Policy and Terms of Use used for this evaluation can be found on Bark’s website, iOS App Store, and the Google Play Store. Additionally, other policies used for this evaluation include: Terms of Service, and Bark School Monitoring Terms of Service. This evaluation only considers policies that have been made publicly available prior to an individual using the application or service.
Safety
Bark's terms require parents and teachers to authorize Bark to access, monitor, review, and store all online interactions and other communications to and from registered child and student accounts. An educator, parent, or a school has the ability to filter or block inappropriate content or social interactions and determine whether abusive behavior, or cyberbullying has occurred.
Privacy
Bark's terms state they may collect all personal and non-personal usage information provided by the registered child or student account that includes, but is not limited to first and last name, email address, scontacts, connections, payments, messages, location information, and other communications. When users register for a Bark account they must also provide the names of their third-party services (such as Gmail, Microsoft Office 365, Facebook or Twitter) and the user name and password for each account to be connected to the Bark service for monitoring purposes.
The terms state Bark may allow third party service providers to place cookies on the service to provide behavioral advertising and to perform analytic or marketing functions where users are notified of them and have have provided consent. Furthermore, the terms state third parties may collect information about a user's online activities over time and across different websites when they use the services. However, the terms indicate that a user's personal information may be sold to third parties.
Lastly, the terms state Bark may provide de-identified user data on an anonymous aggregate basis to third party business partners, including for conducting academic research and surveys or commercial analytics, and to publish periodic sector or segmented information and reports about behavior patterns and tendencies of children and student's online behavior.
Security
Bark's terms state they have adopted technical and organizational measures to preserve and protect users' personal information that the service monitors from unauthorized use or access and from being altered, lost or misused. The terms also state Bark takes into account the technological state of art, the features of the information stored and the risks to which information is exposed. In addition, the terms state the service limits access to user data only to employees who need to know it to enable Bark to perform the services. However, the terms indicate that encryption of user data in transit or while at rest implemented. The terms state that if Bark learns of a security breach, then they will attempt to notify users electronically as soon as reasonably possible so that they can take appropriate steps.
The terms of Bark state the school or district is responsible for setting the default configuration of the services that controls the supervision and monitoring of activities, and determines the personal data to be monitored and collected from children and students. The setting of those configurations constitutes instructions for Bark to process user data on their behalf as necessary to provide the services. The level and degree of user data surveillance and monitoring is entirely under a school or district's control.
Compliance
The terms state users have the right to access, rectify, erase, block and oppose any processing of their personal data that Bark has collected. In addition, users can update, amend or delete their contact information at any time by visiting the settings page on the service. However, any requests to access, modify, or delete user information must be sent to the school or district because the terms state Bark will forward any such requests received by them to the respective school or district who is responsible for responding to any user requests.
The terms state the service is designed to be a tool for parents and others to use to facilitate safe online interactions for children. However, the terms state the service is neither designed nor intended to be attractive to children under the age of 13. While the Bark service includes analysis of online interactions by children, the terms state Bark does not knowingly collect data from children under the age of 13 without first receiving verified parental consent. Lastly, the terms state user data from students may include personally identifiable information from education records that are subject to FERPA and Bark is to be considered a "School Official" and will comply with FERPA.
