A recent study by the Future of Privacy Forum found that developers of top-selling mobile apps were increasingly using privacy policies to cover how they use customer data. Now, the Federal Trade Commission is out with new guidance on what such policies should make clear to smartphone and tablet consumers.
Think of the FTC documents nine bullet points on truthful advertising and privacy as kind of a friendly reminder, says Arent Fox partner Ross Buntrock, who leads the firms telecommunications practice in Washington D.C. For starters, the agency recommends that businesses tell the truth about what your app can do and disclose key information clearly and conspicuously.
The succinct guidance doesnt contain any new requirements. Rather, Buntrock says, its the FTCs way of telling app developers, Youre within our bailiwick, and you should know it.
From the perspective of nervous tech consumers, the guidance also appears to be well timed. A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that 88 percent of American adults use mobile phones, and 43 percent of them download apps to their phonesup from 31 percent of mobile phone owners who did so in 2011. Many of those app users definitely have privacy on the brain. According to the report [PDF]:
57 percent of all app users have either uninstalled an app over concerns about having to share their personal information, or declined to install an app in the first place for similar reasons.
19 percent of cell owners have turned off the location tracking feature on their cell phone because they were concerned that other individuals or companies could access that information.
The FTC guidance, Marketing Your Mobile App: Get It Right from the Start, makes seven recommendations related to privacy. Among them:
Build privacy considerations in from the start. The FTC calls this privacy by design. What does it mean? Incorporating privacy protections into your practices, limiting the information you collect, securely storing what you hold on to, and safely disposing of what you no longer need.
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