When buying an AI toy for a child, judging by whether it chats well is not enough. The UK Age Appropriate Design Code, often called the Children's Code, sets 15 standards for any child-facing product, and its core line is simple: design for children as default vulnerable users.
High-privacy defaults are the hardest gate
The code requires products to ship at their highest privacy setting, not to make users hunt for the switch. For an AI toy that means sensitive permissions like microphone, camera, and location should default off, not on. If a toy silently records or tracks location the moment it boots, it essentially trips this red line. When shopping, first check whether the privacy default is the strictest tier and whether more permissions can be turned off.
Location off, no nudging, then transparency
The second gate is geolocation: the code explicitly discourages default precise location to avoid mapping a child's daily routine. The third is no nudging, no endless pop-ups or achievement badges coaxing a child to give more data or stay online. Last, look at transparency: does the maker explain in child-understandable language where data goes and whether it can be deleted. Penalties reach 17.5 million pounds or 4 percent of global turnover, so serious vendors write this into their docs. Before checkout, underline three things: default privacy, location off, no nudging.
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