Apps popular with children and young people, including TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, have confusing terms of use. This report ranks the ease of understanding a minor could have when reading the terms and conditions for popular video streaming, online gaming, messaging and social media services. Analysing the use of language, design and dark patterns, which nudge people towards specific decisions, the report scores each platform out of 5 stars. The highest score was 2.5 stars out of 5, for Epic Games, with two platforms, TikTok and Spotify, scoring 0. 

The research found the terms and conditions of nine of the 10 surveyed apps required a tertiary level reading age, and on average would take one hour and 46 minutes to read. A survey of 400 Australians aged 16 and 17 found only 7% of young people are confident they understood the terms and conditions they have ‘accepted’, and only 4% read them all the time.

The report calls for a data code for children and young people under 18 years old so their data is only collected and processed in ways that are in their best interests.