With each new school year, it seems, there is some new smartphone app raising alarms.
Now, a calendar-based information-sharing platform called Saturn is prompting warnings. Security updates were made shortly after recent chatter online that said random adults could access the information students were sharing.
The Saturn app has been around for several years but has exploded in popularity, as high school students discover the ease of sharing their calendars and more with classmates. Saturn’s app updates say they are intended to make the service “safer and more secure.”
Chris McKenna, a former youth pastor and founder of the Michigan-based group Protect Young Eyes, said in a telephone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he registered to check it out, and could see students’ “first and last names and all of their connected social media accounts, like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and Venmo.”
The subsequent updates blocked grown-ups like him who lack a school’s email address, but McKenna said teens themselves can still “weaponize” the information.
Kay Draper Hutchinson of Fulton County read about the app on social media, then asked her daughter, a sophomore at Milton High, if she’d downloaded it.
Indeed, she had.
“She saw a lot of people on there. I mean, it was definitely a thing,” said Draper Hutchinson, who said her daughter then deleted the app.
“You don’t (want) random people to have access to where your child is all day long,” Draper Hutchinson said. “It seems like a lot of unnecessary information.”
Saturn says its app, which only works on Apple and is free, is live in 16,000 schools. By Tuesday, it had become the ninth-highest ranked social networking app on the iOS platform, with 28,000 ratings.
Students can use it to publish their schedules and then chat to coordinate meetings. And they can publicize events like theater performances or football games. The app empowers them to “make announcements to your entire school.”
Developer Saturn Technologies Inc. declined a request for comment, instead sharing a link to its blog, which said the updates prevent unverified users accessing core features of the app.
Schools don’t generally police apps on personal devices though a handful of systems around the country have alerted parents about Saturn.
Fulton County Schools has blocked the app from the system’s network, though personal devices with a private signal could presumably still access it on district property.
“Fulton County Schools (FCS) is aware of the Saturn app and its popularity with many of our students,” the district said in a statement, adding that parents should be aware of their children’s online activity. The district shared links to safety resources, such as Common Sense Media.
Saturn can collect information shared by users, such as homework notes and messages, according to the company’s privacy policy. The data might be used to improve personalization and security or to attract other users, the policy says. The information isn’t sold to third parties for marketing purposes but may be shared in the case of a merger or acquisition, the policy notes, adding that the policy itself may change.
Heidi Mueller, another Fulton parent, said her son asked if he could download the app. Having read about it, she denied his request.
“It’s another Facebook and all the other stuff,” she said. “It’s just trying to grab more information.”
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