The wealth of personal data that mobile apps collect on their users needs to be conspicuously stated to consumers or developers could face legal heat, California attorney general Kamala D. Harris said Wednesday.
Rather than resorting to subpoenas and enforcement actions, the California attorney general’s office is in the midst of a crusade of sorts built around encouraging app developers, and Internet services firms in general, to become compliant with state privacy laws on their own accord.
Last year, for instance, the office reached an agreement with a number of major tech companies, including Facebook and Google, to make the privacy policies for those companies’ mobile apps available to consumers in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store before the download process rather than after. The idea is to encourage technology companies that have access to users’ personal identifiable information such as geolocation and contact lists to better inform consumers how that information is used so consumers can make better decisions about using the app in the first place.
California has some of the strongest privacy laws in the country and is often seen as a bellwether for how other states nationwide will grapple with the ongoing issues surrounding consumer privacy and mobile apps. Striking the right balance between innovation and protecting users’ privacy, therefore, is an issue high on Harris’ agenda.
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