Only two short weeks after executives from Apple, Google, and other tech giants provided testimony on Capitol Hill regarding mobile security and privacy concerns, questions and lingering apprehensions about these issues haven't subsided in the least. Well aware of the persistent concerns, one prominent US Senator has formally reached out to Apple and others, saying the time has finally come to either put up or shut up.
On Wednesday, Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) sent a letter to Apple and Google that calls for the creation of mandatory privacy policies from all apps offered via Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market. It was Franken's judiciary subcommittee hearing on mobile tech privacy that initially enabled Apple and others to be grilled in such a high profile matter on these issues.
In the letter, Franken says the time has come for Apple and Google to “commit to requiring that all applications in the Apple App Store and the Android App Market have clear and understandable privacy policies,” as a “simple first step towards further protecting your users’ privacy.”
While Franken conceded that some apps already include a privacy policy, they are too few and far in between. The Senator from Minnesota even pointed to a recent study by TRUSTe and Harris Interactive, which indicated that less than 20% of the top 340 paid smartphone apps include a link to a privacy policy.
Franken says “there is a greater need for transparency and disclosure for the collection and sharing of all personal information,” and asks “at a minimum,” that apps that make use of location data specifically be required to “provide privacy policies that clearly specify what kind of location information is gathered from users, how that information is used, and how it is shared with third parties.”
Source: Washington Post
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