Who is NOT talking about privacy these days?
We at RealityMine have been keeping a careful eye on privacy matters and of course notice that the world is starting to pay ever more attention to privacy in the mobile space, and with good cause. There are a number of cases where some mobile technologies have gone a bit far.
Below is a small sampling of just U.S. media stories on this issue from the past few weeks:
- The Wall Street Journal reports that House members have asked the FTC to investigate Google about Safari tracking after reports that Google disabled its own privacy settings aimed at safeguarding users of the Apple Safari Web browsers on smartphones and PC’s.
- Apps such as Path have been found to copy users’ contact libraries to corporate servers from users’ iPhones without asking permission. Almost any iPhone App can do such a whole out appropriation of these private contacts.
- Google’s Android was found to share photo libraries without users’ permissions with app developers who could copy entire photo libraries.
- Moms and Dads are also weighing in – new groups of child friendly app developers are organizing to recommend these apps to consumers – thus harnessing the positive treatment of users’ privacy for promotion. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat asked for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Apple and Google over reports that the companies’ mobile phone operating systems engage in questionable uses of users’ personal data, including photos and contact lists.
What does the White House have to say?
The White House has not stayed out of the fray. It released the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights where it set out seven key consumer privacy principles:
- Individual control
- Transparency
- Respect for context
- Security
- Access and accuracy
- Focused collection
- Accountability
We are in the Mobile Space in what has been referred to by many commentators as the Wild West of Privacy. Just 5% of all apps offer links to a privacy policy, TRUSTe and Harris Interactive found in a recent study.
President Obama stated: “By following this blueprint, companies, consumer advocates and policymakers can help protect consumers and ensure the Internet remains a platform for innovation and economic growth.”
With all this rampant bad behavior on the part of App developers and platforms, users and regulators have reason for concern. After all – the phone is one’s most intimate companion and repository of memory. We rely on these tools the way we do on close friends and are becoming symbiotic with the tools. This infographic put together by Online Colleges shows the effects of Googling on our own (now known as internal) memory. And the trust starts early – children love their mobile devices and educators do too – ipads are important players already in the classroom. Love is the correct word – people experience serotonin activation in the presence of their beloved devices. Respect for the user and the power of the device calls for attention to consumer privacy.
For all the above reasons, we would like to engage in best practices in the mobile space when it comes to privacy. This means being up front with our uses and about any information sharing with clients or partners. This means no capture or use of any consumer data without explicit consent. Although this philosophy appears to slow down development – in reality, such privacy proactivity ensures that there are no surprises later on in the development cycle – when unexamined privacy issues can derail launches. Good privacy hygiene in a consumer data based business – whether B to C or B to B – means putting privacy issues front and center. To that end, we aim to have a very transparent privacy policy and that our policies work tightly with those of our clients. Our clients appreciate this proactive focus and realize we are investing now to avoid potential problems later. Respecting our users’ data also means taking care of security issues on the back end of systems – more on data security practices in later posts.
