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California AG Gives App Developers 30 Days To Post Privacy Notice
Trailrunner7 writes "California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced a crackdown on mobile application developers and companies that haven't posted privacy policies, at least where users can easily find them. The attorney general is giving recipients 30 days 'to conspicuously post a privacy policy within their app that informs users of what personally identifiable information about them is being collected and what will be done with that private information,' according to a prepared statement. A sample letter defines the issue at hand. 'An operator of a mobile application ("app") that uses the Internet to collect PII is an "online service" within the meaning of CalOPPA. An app's commercial operator must therefore conspicuously post its privacy policy in a means that is reasonably accessible to the consumer. Having a Web site with the applicable privacy policy conspicuously posted may be adequate, but only if a link to that Web site is "reasonably accessible" to the user within the app.'"
Why didn't the AG attach a sample? Because it's a silly idea.
This is a legal document, probably differing for every case, and the point in requiring it is to make developers take a hard look at what information they access and how they use it. Rubber-stamping a boilerplate lets developers say they have a privacy policy, but it doesn't actually encourage any increase in privacy until somebody's sued over it. Once that happens, there will be a few developers who think about privacy, but most won't even know the case happened.
Like most legal documents, you usually don't actually need a lawyer to write it. You may need a lawyer to make it bulletproof against other lawyers, but any statement is enough. You could drop in a note saying "This app doesn't intentionally collect any personally-identifiable information, and doesn't contact external services" and probably satisfy the needs of the law, assuming it's accurate. In the event of a lawsuit, though, that statement would cause a little trouble (and open up room for opposing lawyers to argue), because it doesn't define "personally-identifiable" or "external" adequately. Does a game ask for a name for a high-score list? Does it send usage reports or download updates from a developer's server?
A lawyer could enumerate all the things the app does and doesn't do, in absolutely clear language, so there's no question where users' data goes, but for many apps (especially for those made without the intent of profit) that's unnecessary. Developers should already know how their program works, so they should be able to define one aspect of it.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but I've had my share of dealings with them.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I disagree that it's going to be that different. If they need to list different data fields that will be retained, or change a length of time, they can edit the open-source document for their specific needs. But this gives them a template to work from which has all of the lawyerese perfected.
I can't agree that the document will differ in every case. In my experience, the differences will be slight, and thus having an open source document would encourage programmers to adopt a general standard (like a community rule) for how they're going to approach privacy issues.
The result would be a raising of the overall standard to that of the proposed document, which is why it's a good idea to have professionals write it and "promulgate" it.
...why didn't the AG attach a sample privacy policy and open source it so that developers can use it?
Because the real intention here is to put small independent developers with their 'disruptive' technology who can't afford a gaggle of lawyers out of business. The whole idea of a 'privacy policy' can be nothing more than a jobs program for the legal profession. It is impossible to enforce such nonsense.
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