Recommendations for a smart toy parental control tool

Current smart toy parental control tools offered by toy companies do not adequately support parents in protecting their children. Moreover, there is no reference solution in the literature to be used by toymakers. Most studies are limited to mentioning the importance and purpose of these tools or some specific requirements. This article proposes a reference solution for smart toy parental control tools, with which parents can take control and adequately manage their children’s data according to their preferences. This reference solution comprises a recommended list of requirements, a conceptual model, and a prototype developed as a proof of concept for the solution. An analysis highlights that current legal standards for privacy protection do not satisfy the requirements raised in this study. Furthermore, the results of an evaluation conducted with experts show that the proposed solution is adequate to be used as a reference by academia and industry