Pixalate is taking aim at what it calls a dangerous blind spot in the mobile app economy.
The ad fraud detection and digital safety firm—recognized by UNICEF as a “key innovator” for children’s online privacy—has launched Know Your Developer (KYD), a free, public, and continuously updated database designed to help parents, schools, and child safety advocates assess privacy and safety risks across mobile app developers on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Instead of rating individual apps, KYD evaluates the people and companies behind them.
And the early findings are not reassuring.
Auditing 356,000+ Developers
The KYD database covers 356,095 ad-funded mobile app developers, including 86,028 developers operating at least one child-directed app. Each developer is evaluated across multiple risk categories, including:
- Child privacy compliance
- Parental consent mechanisms
- Precise geolocation data sharing
- Advertising fraud exposure
- App security update practices
- Transparency of developer identity
According to Pixalate’s Q4 2025 observations, 62% of ad-funded developers have apps with child privacy or online safety vulnerabilities.
For a market that serves hundreds of millions of children globally, that’s a systemic red flag.
Where App Store Labels Fall Short
Pixalate argues that current app store “Data Safety” labels—particularly on Google Play—often rely on self-reported disclosures that can contradict actual observed data practices.
In multiple cases cited by Pixalate, popular apps claiming “No data collected” or “No data shared” were observed transmitting precise location data to third parties via real-time bidding (RTB) ad streams.
Examples include apps with more than 100 million downloads that allegedly:
- Transmitted precise geolocation coordinates
- Failed to obtain verifiable parental consent
- Shared location data through ad exchanges
- Omitted those disclosures from app store safety labels
If accurate, the implications are significant. Location data broadcast into programmatic advertising ecosystems can enable device fingerprinting and persistent tracking—practices heavily scrutinized under COPPA and other child privacy regulations.
Seven Risk Categories, One Public Record
KYD establishes ongoing oversight across seven structured categories. Some of the most striking findings:
- 24,124 developers share precise geolocation coordinates with third parties via the ad bid stream.
- 118,049 developers (33%) have app permissions capable of tracking precise location.
- 99% failure rate in verifiable parental consent testing among a 3,936-app sample reviewed by Pixalate’s Trust & Safety Advisory Board.
- 195,342 developers (55%) rated “Critical” for banned app risk, indicating ties to delisted or removed apps.
- 20,796 developers rated “Critical” for unsafe advertising risk linked to invalid traffic or fraud signals.
- 10,198 developers flagged for outdated app security practices.
- 7,222 developers lacked accessible privacy policies.
- 1,535 developers rated “Critical” for anonymous ownership risk.
Pixalate is accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for ad fraud detection, giving additional weight to its fraud-related findings.
CEO Jalal Nasir framed the issue bluntly: parents downloading a cartoon app may unknowingly expose their child’s location data to the broader ad ecosystem.
The “Handoff Gap” Between Platforms and Developers
A core argument behind KYD is what Pixalate describes as a structural “handoff gap.” While Apple and Google may set platform-level policies, child-safety signals often fail to translate into enforceable safeguards at the developer level.
Parents browsing app stores typically see star ratings and download counts—not:
- A developer’s history of violations
- Portfolio-wide data practices
- Patterns of COPPA compliance issues
- Prior delistings or enforcement actions
That opacity becomes more concerning amid ongoing regulatory debates. Apple and Google are reportedly lobbying Congress on legislation such as the App Store Accountability Act, which would require stricter developer compliance checks and age verification mechanisms.
KYD effectively inserts an independent audit layer into that conversation.
Built for Parents, Schools—and AI
Unlike traditional research reports, KYD is structured for accessibility. The database is designed to work with Large Language Models, enabling users to query developer risk profiles directly through prompts.
For example:
“Is [Developer Name] flagged for children’s online safety risks in the Pixalate KYD database?”
For parents, KYD allows pre-download checks on:
- Developer identity transparency
- Location tracking permissions
- Parental consent mechanisms
- Portfolio-wide risk exposure
For K–12 schools, it offers a way to vet developers before approving apps on school-issued devices—an increasingly urgent task as districts adopt more digital learning tools.
Why This Matters for Ad Tech
Beyond child safety, KYD exposes deeper structural issues in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. If precise location data from child-directed apps is entering the RTB bid stream, that raises broader compliance and brand safety concerns for advertisers and exchanges alike.
Invalid traffic indicators, fraud-linked developers, and opaque data-sharing practices create risk not only for families but also for brands investing in mobile ad inventory.
In that sense, KYD isn’t just a parenting tool—it’s a transparency play in digital advertising.
The Bottom Line
App stores provide ratings. KYD provides receipts.
By auditing hundreds of thousands of developers and making that data publicly searchable, Pixalate is challenging the assumption that platform-level disclosures are sufficient for child safety.
Whether regulators, advertisers, or the platforms themselves respond remains to be seen. But for parents navigating an app ecosystem optimized for growth, not transparency, KYD adds something that has long been missing: developer-level accountability.
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