Privacy-on-the-Go: Make sure that "killer app" has a privacy policy -- UPDATE

By Cynthia J. Larose

We posted this alert back in March, and now California Attorney General Kamala Harris has released a recommended set of privacy best practices for app developers and advertising networks entitled "Privacy on the Go:  Recommendations for the Mobile Ecosystem." Written after consulting a “broad spectrum of stakeholders,” including app developers, ad networks, privacy professionals and privacy advocates, the best practices urges those developing apps to consider building privacy protections in from the start and to display brief notices prior to taking actions such as data collection.

Those of us here at the Privacy & Security Matters blog approve of the title.

Original March 13, 2012 post:

Although one would never realize it when downloading many popular mobile apps on any of the major platforms (Apple's iTunes, Google, Amazon, RIM, HP, etc.) -- the requirements of California's Online Privacy Protection Act to have a "clear and conspicuous" privacy policy apply to mobile apps as well as online website.   California's Attorney General has reached an agreement on a set of principles with Apple, Google, Amazon, HP, RIM and Microsoft that will see all companies implementing new standards for displaying privacy policies for apps that collect personal data.

"We can sue and we will sue,"  Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said when announcing the agreement.

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    Cynthia J. Larose

    Member / Co-Chair, Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice

    Cynthia J. Larose is Chair of the firm's Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice, a Certified Information Privacy Professional-US (CIPP-US), and a Certified Information Privacy Professional-Europe (CIPP-E). She works with clients in various industries to develop comprehensive information security programs on the front end, and provides timely counsel when it becomes necessary to respond to a data breach.