Attorney General Kamala Harris has announced an agreement committing the leading operators of mobile application platforms to improve privacy protections for millions of consumers around the globe who access the Internet through applications (“apps”) on their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
Harris forged the agreement with six companies whose platforms comprise the majority of the mobile apps market: Apple, Amazon, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Research In Motion. These platforms have agreed to privacy principles designed to bring the industry in line with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy. The majority of mobile apps sold today do not contain a privacy policy.
“Your personal privacy should not be the cost of using mobile apps, but all too often it is,” Harris says. “This agreement strengthens the privacy protections of California consumers and of millions of people around the globe who use mobile apps. By ensuring that mobile apps have privacy policies, we create more transparency and give mobile users more informed control over who accesses their personal information and how it is used.”
This agreement will allow consumers the opportunity to review an app’s privacy policy before they download the app rather than after, and will offer consumers a consistent location for an app’s privacy policy on the application-download screen. If developers don’t comply with their stated privacy policies, they can be prosecuted under California’s Unfair Competition Law and/or False Advertising Law.
The agreement further commits the platforms to educate developers about their obligations to respect consumer privacy and to disclose to consumers what private information they collect, how they use the information, and with whom they share it. The platforms will also work to improve compliance with privacy laws by giving users tools to report non-compliant apps and committing companies to implement processes to respond to these reports, says Harris.