Is security keeping up with this fast-moving app development market? There’s a growing interest on how mobile apps inform their users about the personal data collected, how long it is stored, with whom it is shared and the purposes it is being used for.
While mobile devices small screen sizes makes communicating to consumers privacy practices especially challenging, industry’s specialists search the ways to provide the secure experiences mobile users demand.
Increased interest in mobile ecosystem privacy
Mobile technology currently raises specific privacy concerns among consumers all over the world. Mobile devices can facilitate enormous amounts of data collection and this fact tends to diminish people’s trust in the mobile marketplace.
What’s to be done about it?
Well, if you want users trust, you should aim for reasonable data security. All players in the mobile ecosystem need to constantly improve mobile privacy disclosures, making sure consumers know exactly if their data is collected and how it is used.
At the beginning of this year US’s chief privacy agency – The Federal Trade Commission, released a report that contains a series of recommendations on how app developers and publishers can better inform users about data practices.
There’s always room for tips on how to provide a secure experience for users, as it helps you protect the reputation of your app, so here we go.
Mobile apps privacy recommendations
Here’s a resume on their suggestions for app developers, concerning privacy on mobile devices:
you build trust through transparency, so always have a privacy policy; make it easily accessible through the app stores.
provide just-in-time disclosures and obtain users consent before you app access, collects or shares sensitive data/information – contact info, photos, location – to name a few.
provide accurate disclosures to users on what data third parties like ad networks or analytics companies collect and how it is being used.
consider involving in industry organizations that provide guidance on privacy issues.
Earlier this year, the California attorney general, Kamala Harri, also published a report chronicling what her office called best practices on mobile app privacy. Here’s the summed-up list of recommendations on privacy proceedings directed to app developers:
be transparent – make your privacy practices easily available.
limit data collection & retention – minimize the collection of sensitive information and adopt procedures of deleting user data you no longer need.
use security safeguards to protect user data from unauthorized access or usage.
Consumers demand transparent privacy policies
An easy to read privacy policy gives users a choice between one app and its competitor. So here’s the first step to innovative mobile app development that protect consumer privacy.
According to the latest MEF research, published last month, more than a quarter of the top 100 free mobile apps in the US across Google Play and Apple App Store don’t have a privacy policy.
The facts:
70% of consumers say they need to know exactly what personal data is being collected and shared.
only 55% of apps make the privacy policy available via app store
only 30% of apps make the privacy policy available within the app
28% of apps do not have a privacy policy
the majority of privacy policies are too long and many are complicated.
There’s no doubt: consumers, even digital-savvy ones, are concerned about their privacy on mobile devices; there were app users that have uninstalled an app over worries that they have to share personal data or declined to install a new app in the first place for similar reasons.
In order to gain audience’s trust and loyalty, it is obvious privacy should be approached with transparency. Need some help with it? Get in touch here, we’re happy to assist you anytime, with dedicated support ;).
