The State Of Mobile App Privacy Policies via @JulesPolonetsky
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank Future of Privacy Forum (“FPF”) released a study detailing the current state of mobile app privacy policies as of this past month, June 2012.
The report found that many app developers are now responding to the increased pressure from U.S. regulators on this issue, and have now introduced privacy policies for their applications as well as new policies surrounding the use of customers’ private data.
Study results full pdf
Table 1 sets forth the total percentage of all 150 and paid apps across three platforms:
The following tables reflect the % of total apps that provide some form of access to a privacy policy…
But more importantly, the FPF also looked into whether the privacy policy was linked to from the app store listing page and whether it was accessible from within the app itself. (See charts below). After all, what good is a privacy policy, if no one can find it?
According to the report’s findings, 48% of the free apps and 28% of paid apps in the iOS App Store have a privacy policy directly accessible on the listing page. 20% of free apps and 12% of paid apps on Google Play provide access to a privacy policy on the listing page. (The Kindle Fire Appstore has not yet provided developers the capability of linking to their policy from their listing page.
The study also found that of the top 25 free apps on iOS, Google Play and the Kindle Fire Appstore, 48% made the privacy policies available within the app. Free apps show significant improvement here.
The report even looked at apps which requested precise user location data in particular to see if they had privacy policies. Here, 12 out of the 50 apps surveyed on the iOS App Store platform requested precise location information and 10 out of those 12 had privacy policies. 14 out of the 50 apps surveyed on Google Play requested precise location information and 10 out of those 14 had privacy policies.
The apps that collected location but offered no accessible privacy policy included:
- Google Play apps: Cut the Rope, Camera ZOOM FX, Star Chart, and Smart Tools
- iOS apps: Fruit Ninja Lite and Camera+
In a few cases, the privacy policy was available on the website, but not in the app, so it was not counted.
Another change the FPF noticed is that some apps had begun to use a “short form notice,” which is an easy-to read version of their privacy policy for consumers to briefly scan. FPF noticed that all six apps where it found this occurring were from Zynga.
