An alarming report has revealed that 80 per cent of the smartphone applications designed for children do not reveal if they are recording data such as the user's location or phone number.

The research was carried out by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and is especially worrying as many children will receive new phones or tablet devices this Christmas.

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said: "Our study shows that kids’ apps syphon an alarming amount of information from mobile devices without disclosing this fact to parents."

Of the 400 children's apps that the FTC studied, it was found that almost two-thirds (59 per cent) were definitely sending data back to the developer of the app or a third-party.

Dermot Williams, managing director of Irish IT firm Threatscape, told the Irish Times that he is worried that, because 99 per cent of the apps that children download are free, the developers are looking for other ways to generate revenue.

He suggests that these methods may not be suitable for children and the FTC report highlighted the case of a "painting program for kids" app that contained an advert with a link to a dating website.

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