Washington, DC (December 14, 2021) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has recognized REGO and its super app digital wallet platform Mazoola with its Dignity Defense Alert.
Mazoola, as the only COPPA-certified mobile family wallet, is a walled garden that offers parents much-needed reassurance that their children’s financial information is safe while shopping with their favorite retailers online or in-store from their mobile device. Parents get the immediate visibility into every one of their child’s transactions, while helping them build financial independence in a safe, step-by-step way.
“With increasing dangers youth face online, we are pleased to recognize Mazoola which gives parents ‘digital superpowers’ to help navigate their child’s path to earning, learning and developing essential money management skills, while protecting their financial privacy and providing essential armor against victimization and exploitation online,” said Lina Nealon, director of corporate and strategic initiatives for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Payment apps and online payment options through social media platforms are used to enable child and adult sexual exploitation. These digital payment options give easier access to sexual predators to groom young users. Direct service providers serving child sex trafficking victims have called NCOSE to ask for assistance with advocating that Square, CashApp, and Venmo make changes to their platforms to reduce the ease with which predators can send money to young kids. Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp and online child safety group Bark have found similar trends – predators using these online payment systems to groom and exploit children.
Child sex trafficking survivors have shown NCOSE their phones, explaining that $50 would suddenly show up in their account and they would know their sex trafficker just sold them to a sex buyer.
In addition to the ease with which online payments are given and received directly to youth to facilitate child sexual exploitation, predators are also known to track the behavior of youth online and then use that knowledge to push kids to do what they want.
“Personal financial information is rocket fuel for abusers and predators who thrive on grooming, manipulation, and ‘social engineering’ of young children. Personal data about a child’s online and in-person transactions would open massive new avenues to earn trust and break through child’s defenses and instincts. Smart tech like Mazoola can protect our kids now and let them benefit from the online world without falling prey to it,” Nealon concluded.
NCOSE’s Dignity Defense Alert is a new campaign to recognize the people, companies, and nonprofits, who are taking action to defend human dignity from any form of sexual abuse or exploitation.
For more information, visit https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/mazoola-protects-kids-privacy/.
