Is The ‘Talking Angela’ App safe for kids? We take a look…

Rumours that an app called Talking Angela is actually a front for a pedophile ring, a child pornography ring, a kidnapping front or is simply designed to be inappropriate, are spreading across social media. Again.

We briefly spoke about this hoax in early 2013 but it has since gone viral again and again, and this time is warrants a more comprehensive debunking.

Firstly, the rumours – of which there have been many over the last handful of years. Some claim that the App is the front-end of a pedophile ring wanting to ask children inappropriate questions or even to surreptitiously take photos of them. Others claim the App is used to accumulate personal details of the kids via the app for an unknown but likely malevolent reason. In 2015 further rumours arose claiming the app discusses molestation with children but is able to detect when a parent is using the app and thus “goes back to normal”. Other latter variants of the rumour claim the app is used in conjunction with a child pornography and kidnapping ring.

Other more silly rumours have previously claimed that you can see the image of a hacker/sex offender spying on the child using the app if you “look really carefully at Angela’s eye” – a rumour clearly written by someone without any real comprehension of how a video camera operates.

Some examples of the social media warnings can be read below –

WARNING FOR TO ALL PARENTS WITH CHILDREN THAT HAVE ANY ELECTRONIC DEVICES, EX: IPOD,TABLETS ETC …. THERE IS A SITE CALLED TALKING ANGELA, THIS SITE ASKS KIDS QUESTIONS LIKE: THERE NAMES, WHERE THEY GO TO SCHOOL AND ALSO TAKE PICTURES OF THEIR FACES BY PUSHING A HEART ON THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER WITHOUT ANY NOTICES. PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHILDREN’S IPODS AND ALL TO MAKE SURE THEY DO NOT HAVE THIS APP !!! PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO YOUR FRIENDS

I cant even in words say what I just found out.. I am SHOCKED and want to tell and let my friends and family be made aware so they can make sure their children are safe!!! Angelica stayed home from school today and thank GOD she did. Because she was on her ipod playing a game called talking angela, which is similar to talking tom, anyway as she is sitting next to me this interactive cat says to her hi angelica where is your brother? She says o hes right here next to me the cat says o cool, then the cat says so what do you do for fun? Ang says I dont know, (now im being quiet and listening because I think its weird this angela cat knows she has a brother and is talking to her like a person) then its voice changes and in some weird robotic voice it says angelica when u date what do u do on your dates? She looked at me got red in the face and said nothing, then it said stick out your touunge, ill stick mine out too, it said what are some things u can do with your tounge? I can find many things to do with my tounge it said it said lets intrract w our toungues. I that point I had heard enough I zaid ang shut it off now! I was freaked out called the police departnrnt they came to the house saif they would have the internet investigations unit andpedofile investigations unit look into it, they called me an hour latet and said something is behind that cat!!! They dont know if it is local or over seas. While the police officer was there and ang was talking to him she told the police officer saturday night her cousin and her were on the app w angela and it asked the girls their names what her brothers name was what school they BOTH went to, and it took a picture of angelica!!! This is under serious investigation right now! When I googled talking angela I cant even begin to tell you what creepy stuff came up! Google it for yourselves please!! But some things are the cat asking girls for their phone numbers! And if theyve had their firat kiss!!! Take this app off your phone please! Theres a big chance thid cpuld be a door for pedofiles.the police said they have seen thing *like* this but never actually through a childs app but that they are not putting it past them! The girls told angela the cat on saturday their names and she had a brother and then on monday morning when angelica turned the app back on, It remebered her name and that she had a brother!!! These things ARENT supposed to ask you questions!!! and especially not questions about dating toungues or kissing!! I am disgusted! I dont feel safe at all right now! Knowing that there was some creep talking to my daughter and my neice through a talking app!!! Please if you have this app or any like it the police are saying take it off of your phone!!! Copy and share and send out PLEASE! This word needs to spread! I pray the ocean county investigators can crack this thing open!!!!!
So please if your KIDS use this app please shut it down. Because SOME KIDS told them the name of the school they went to and is now on red alert at the school, and please PASS this on to ALL your friends.

Firstly, to put the entire thing into some context – Talking Angela, the official App, is developed by a reputable and well known company called Outfit7, not a shadowy network of cyber criminals/deviants looking to prey on children. Outfit7 have many other Apps on the marketplace, which collectively have been downloaded over a billion times. They have an office, salaried employees, a website. Everything that a successful software development company would have.

The Talking Angela App has been used, tested and reported on by many software testers, journalists and others, including ourselves, many in response to the rumours we spoke of above.

And no, there is no malicious intent here. Talking Angela does not harvest the personal details of children, nor transmit them to third parties. It does not broadcast videos or images of children to networks of child predators. It does not attempt to engage children in blatantly inappropriate conversations. It is not a front for hackers or criminals to garner information about the child or the child’s family.

In this respect, the rumours are nothing more than a hoax.

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Many have raised concerns however, albeit not to the same degree as many of these hoaxes would suggest. For example, when the child mode is off, the Angela character can indeed engage with the user and ask them personal information such as their name. Though this information isn’t shared, many parents could feel uncomfortable with such features.

Through the text engagement feature, kids can interact with Angela via a number of different conversational paths, most innocent enough. Yes, some of the rumours mention a clothes swapping party, which is true – and taken out of context many parents may deem this inappropriate, though we failed to see anything particularly risqué with any of it.

The only really adult conversation is when Angela describes cat sex as “hair raising” and “purrfect” but these are only direct responses if the user themselves brings up the subject of sex.

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The important thing to note is that the text engagement feature is not available when Child Mode is enabled, and thus none of the above types of engagement are possible when Child Mode is enabled. However another area of concern arises with how easy it is to enable Child Mode. With no preventative features, Child Mode can be enabled by clicking a smiley face on the screen.

Ultimately if parents feel the App is not appropriate, they should not allow their children to interact with it, and for young children especially, adults should supervise when using apps they themselves have not tested first. Some parents feel that the App is “purrfectly” fine. Others have expressed concern as to how suitable it is for younger children. Ultimately it is up to the parent to decide.

With that said, Talking Angela is not a front for criminals, nor does it employ any real malicious intent, and thus the rumours above should not be circulated.