New Mobile App Privacy Guidelines

Six top companies in the world of applications have entered into an agreement, by law to take a step towards better Mobile Privacy.The whole issue was overseen by the Attorney General Kamala Harris.This seems to be a forced conjunction of these companies as they do not usually agree upon the same things.

According to this agreement, these companies must ensure that they install a Privacy Policy in their apps for mobiles, which ask for personal information from the users who download and use these applications.The reason behind this new policy seems to be the misuse of personal information through Mobile Apps.

The apps are now required to show the users a Privacy Policy, which talks about the nature of personal information that they acquire through the application and how they intend to use it.This is kind of like a Privacy Policy that webmasters write about Google Adsense, as it is an interest based advertising program.

The Privacy Policy is also required to be shown to the user before he or she downloads and installs it.That is the Privacy Policy must be made aware to the user, before they get it on their phone to prevent any loopholes in policy.This will definitely slow down the process of downloading and installing new apps, but it is for the good of the users and hence I urge everyone who downloads new mobile apps to check the privacy policy once, to see if you are alright with the kind of personal information that is collected about you.

Harris was quoted saying – “The majority of mobile apps sold today do not contain a privacy policy.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.”

The user reaction to this new update of the privacy policy for mobile apps is yet to be documented, but I am sure it will have a balanced reaction with a few people supporting it and a few not supporting the new changes.