App developers, privacy advocates work out suggestions for policy disclosure

Did you know which apps are looking at your contacts list? Your calendar? Your location? Even when apps provide information on what data they access, the notifications are often so cumbersome to read that users skip right over them. To curb that problem, app developers and privacy advocates have collaborated to come up with ways to better display privacy policy information and cut through the long, legal liability documents.

The App Developers Alliance (ADA), Consumer Action, World Privacy Forum and American Civil Liberties Union will present mock-ups of screens that offer quick-scan information on what data app developers collect and that who else has access to that data. The groups will present their proposal Nov 30 in Washington at a National Telecommunications and Information Administration meeting on app privacy and transparency. Jon Potter, president of the App Developers Alliance, said that it’s in developers’ best interests to let people know what data the apps use. “App developers have no interest in fighting with consumers,” Potter said. “We want them to be comfortable with using apps.”