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Thursday, 16 February 2012
Congress Inquires into Apple’s Privacy Policies just as the Company Announces a Change
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Apple’s privacy policies recently came under fire again whenit was discovered by an independent app developer that the app Path was collecting content from his iPhone’s contacts without having asked for his consent.
While Path took it upon themselves to change their privacy policy, Apple didn’t address the issue until today. The company has stated that it will implement a guideline requiring that apps that use address book data will require explicit user permission to do so.
An Apple spokesman told AllThingsD, “Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines.” He went on to say that the company is working to make things better for users, referring to what they did for location services.
Path wasn’t the only app to have received flack recently. Twitter, Yelp and Foursquare all changed their privacy policies after pressure from the public. Because it appears that this type of un-moderated access to users’ contact data is becoming a trend, criticism against Apple has grown. So much so that Congress has sent an official letter to the company, expressing concerns that iOS developers may be accessing and storing data from users without proper permission.
The letter requests Apple to respond to a series of questions regarding Apple’s guidelines for approval of apps that collect data and how the company defines’ “data about users.”
Below is a list of the questions that Congress wishes a response to by February 29.
- Please describe all iOS App Guidelines that concern criteria related to the privacy and security of data that will be accessed or transmitted by an app.- Please describe how you determine whether an app meets those criteria.- What data do you consider to be “data about a user” that is subject to the requirement that the app obtain the user’s consent before it is transmitted?- To the extent not addressed in the response to question 2, please describe how you determine whether an app will transmit “data about a user” and whether the consent requirement has been met.- How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit “data about a user”?- Do you consider the contents of the address book to be “data about a user”?- Do you consider the contents of the address book to be data of the contact? If not, please explain why not. Please explain how you protect the privacy and security interests of that contact in his or her information.- How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit information from the address book? How many of those ask for the user’s consent before transmitting their contacts’ information?- You have built into your devices the ability to turn off in one place the transmission of location information entirely or on an app-by-app basis. Please explain why you have not done the same for address book information.
Although Apple has finally made it clear to the public that it will enforce a stricter guideline on allowing apps to access user data, it is coming up at a convenient time since the letter from Congress was published on the same day that Apple made its comment regarding a change in policy. No matter what the reasoning is, it is good to see Apple working to protect users’ privacy.
Via:Padgadget
This post was written by: Irfan Jam
Irfan Jam is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Facebook
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