Most Apps’ Privacy Policies Continue To Be Missing In Action

Digital privacy has received a lot of attention in the past year, but one area that stands out as still lacking is the fast-growing world of mobile apps. The Future of Privacy Forum think tank analyzed the top 30 paid apps this week, and discovered that 22 of them lacked even a basic privacy policy.

The existence of a written privacy policy is a minimum standard that all developers should adhere to, says FPF, and now the group has put together a website, application privacy.org, meant to help developers create privacy policies and stick to them. FPF director Jules Polonetsky emphasized that app developers shouldn't be count on the big companies who own the platforms they work with, like Facebook, Apple and Google, to handle all their privacy issues for them. “App developers with limited staff or resources can end up being responsible for the data of millions of users,” Polonetsky said in a blog post about the launch of the application privacy site. “Platforms and operating systems have roles to play, but app developers themselves need to be responsible for their own practices.”