Children’s Privacy

We don’t knowingly collect data from or about children under 16 without the permission of their parent or guardian. When we do collect that data, we might do it directly, like when you sign up for a service. We might also collect it automatically if your child uses the products or services we offer. 

Different products and services collect different kinds of data. The categories of children’s data that each product or service collected in the last twelve months are listed below.

T-Mobile is currently testing the ability for parents and guardians can designate a line as a “Kids’ Line.” This feature enables parents to tell us that a line on their account is used by a child under the age of 16. We won’t use data from designated Kids’ Lines for advertising, and we’ll opt the line out of receiving marketing communications from T-Mobile.

This feature is currently only available to customers with T-Mobile-branded rate plans, but we’re working hard to expand access to all customers soon. In the meantime, customers can opt out of the use of their data for advertising at any time through their account settings.

We collect the following data from Kids‘ Lines:

Geolocation Data 
We collect data that tells us the location of your child’s mobile device.

Unique Identifiers 
We collect device and network identifiers—basically, ways for us to tell which mobile device on our network is your child’s.

Age 
We collect your child’s birth month and year so that we can tell when your child turns 16 and can change the line back to a regular line.

Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) 
CPNI is generated by your child’s use of our wireless voice communications services. For more information, read the Phone privacy article.

Information from your child’s use of our products, services, and network (and other carriers’ networks when roaming domestically or internationally) 
This includes usage of connecting carriers and Internet service providers, IP address, text messages, and data use history, content interactions (for example, how long you use an app), language settings, and other network and device analytics and Wi-Fi connection and usage data.

Device and service performance and diagnostic information 
This includes reports from your child’s device about signal strength, speeds, app and service performance, dropped calls, call and data failures, geolocation information, and device data.

Audio information 
This includes voice commands your child provides to our apps (for example, for accessibility or hands-free use).

Read the T-Mobile Privacy Notice to learn more about how we collect, use, and share data from regular lines.

Project 10Million provides families that qualify with a free Wi-Fi hotspot and 100GB of free data.

We collect the following data as part of Project 10Million:

Child’s first and last name

Child’s student ID 
We collect this to check whether your child is eligible.

Data usage 
This tells us the amount of data the hotspot uses, and IP addresses associated with websites visited.

Unique identifiers 
We collect device and network identifiers—basically, ways for us to tell which hotspot on our network is your child’s.

The SyncUP KIDS Watch connects families with their children by enabling talk and text for approved contacts, real-time location tracking, and virtual boundary alerts. We collect the following data via the SyncUP KIDS watch:

Geolocation data 
This tells us the location of your child’s SyncUP KIDS Watch. 

Unique identifiers 
These tell us which SyncUP KIDS Watch on our network is your child’s.

Call and text usage information 
This includes Customer Proprietary Network Information (“CPNI”) your child generates when they use our wireless voice service. For more information, read the Phone privacy article. 

Photo, video, audio, and text messages 
We collect these to transmit them to the recipient and store them on the watch. We don’t store copies of the messages or copies of photos, videos, and audio clips generated by the watch anywhere else.

Child interactions with device 
This includes, for example, if the watch is turned on or off, if it enters or leaves airplane mode, watch battery charge level, child step counts, and other watch activity information. We collect these to provide notifications to you in the app about both your child’s activities and their watch status.

Information from your child’s use of our product, services, and network (and other carriers’ networks when roaming domestically or internationally)
Like usage of connecting carriers and Internet service providers, the IP address, text messages, and data use history, content interactions, language settings, and other network and device analytics and usage data.

Device and service performance and diagnostic information 
This includes reports from your child’s device about signal strength, speeds, device, app and service performance, dropped calls, call and data failures, geolocation information, and device data.

Back-up information 
Including, for example, contacts set by you in the app. We collect this so that certain information can be restored to a new watch pairing.

Name and age 
We also collect your child’s name and age directly from you when you set up the watch to help personalize the product. Age is optional but does allow us to enable additional features.

Please note, you can revoke your consent at any time and delete your child’s data by removing your child’s profile.

FamilyMode and Safe & Found are two solutions that let parents manage and control their kids’ online activities and screen time across the family’s compatible devices. T-Mobile and its vendor, Smith Micro, collect the following data via FamilyMode and Safe & Found:

Geolocation data 
This tells us the location of your child’s device. This information is stored for 7 days.

Profile name and photo 
These are used to customize the service.

Internet usage and history 
This is used to provide content filtering services and provide parents with information about their child’s Internet usage. This information is stored for 8 days.

Time zone 
This is used to provide the service.

Please note, you can revoke your consent at any time and delete your child’s data by either deleting your child’s profile or cancelling your FamilyMode or your Safe & Found subscription.

The main reason we collect children’s data is to provide the product or service that collected the data. But we may also use children’s data to do things like:

• Create and administer accounts, complete transactions, payments, billing, and requests related to our products and services and third-party products and services charged to your accounts.
• Check eligibility for a particular product or service.
• Help stop fraudulent, malicious, deceptive, abusive, or unlawful activities.
• Fix errors and ensure the quality, security, and safety of our products and services and network.
• Guide our development of children’s products and services.
• Conduct aggregate (meaning, data that cannot be associated with an individual child) analyses of product, service, and network performance.
• Cooperate with law enforcement and protect the rights, safety, or property of our customers, T-Mobile, and others.
• Comply with and enforce legal and regulatory obligations and respond to government requests.
• Enforce our policies, terms and conditions, or other agreements.
• Defend against or pursue claims, disputes, or litigation.

We retain personal data, including children’s data, for business or tax needs, or legal reasons. We set our retention periods based on things like the type of personal data, the business purpose for which it was collected, and legal obligations to retain certain kinds of personal data.

We do not knowingly sell the personal data of children under 16. We also do not knowingly share the personal data of children under 16 for advertising purposes.

Sometimes we hire others to help us provide a product or service, and these service providers may need access to children’s data. They are required to keep children’s data we provide them confidential and to use it only to provide the services we requested.

We may also share children’s data with third parties, including the government, for legal processes or to protect life and safety where we believe that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of the data is reasonably necessary.

For Project 10Million, we may also share aggregate versions of this data (meaning, data that cannot be associated with an individual child) with government agencies or schools.

Parents and guardians have rights and choices when it comes to their children’s data:

• To change their mind and withdraw consent to the collection of their child(ren)’s personal data.
• To consent to the sharing of their child(ren)’s data.
• To see the personal data T-Mobile has collected about their child(ren), including getting a copy of the personal data in a form they can read, use, and transfer, where we can.
• To ask us to delete or correct the personal data T-Mobile has collected about their child(ren).

Sometimes we can’t comply with your request. When that happens, residents of certain states are entitled to submit an appeal. Instructions for how to submit your appeal will be included in our response explaining why we couldn’t comply. T-Mobile customers can also designate lines as “Kids’ Lines” (as described above) to limit our use of data from the line. We may need to collect some data from you to confirm you’re the parent or guardian.

Of course, if you do exercise any of these rights or choices, T-Mobile will not treat you any differently.

Important 
We need to collect your child’s data (as described above) to provide the relevant products or services. If you change your mind about giving consent or ask us to delete your child’s data, the product or service may no longer work. In some cases, the only way for us to stop your child’s data from being collected might be to cancel your child’s service.

We keep this privacy notice up to date. When we make changes, we’ll let you know by updating this notice and the date at the top of this page. In addition, prior to making a material change to how we use or share your child’s data, we’ll also reach out to you (e.g., by text or email or with your bill). If you keep using our products and services after we notify you, we’ll take that to mean you’re fine with the changes for any new data we collect. Those changes will not apply to previously collected personal data unless we get consent from impacted consumers.