MEF launches AppPrivacy™ the online privacy tool for mobile app developers to build consumer trust

Free global service and resources backed by international industry Working Group

www.appprivacy.net 

12 September, 2013, London and San Francisco: MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce, today launched AppPrivacy™ with the goal to build consumer trust in mobile apps by helping developers apply best practice in the collection and sharing of personal information. 

The free online tool provides an industry-led privacy policy generator that makes it easy to incorporate privacy best practice into the app development and design workflow, backed with the latest data resources and developer-friendly guidance on privacy issues.  AppPrivacy enables developers to offer consumers a short-form, easy-to-understand privacy policy that explains how their data is being used.

MEF’s Global Privacy Report 2013 showed that only a third of consumers are comfortable sharing personal data with an app. Transparency is key: 70% consider it important to know when an app is gathering and sharing their personal information. In August, MEF also revealed that more than a quarter of the top 100 free apps still don’t have a privacy policy and, of those that do, only a third offer access to the policy within the app.

AppPrivacy was developed to address this by MEF’s global cross-sector Privacy in Mobile Apps Working Group.  Founded in 2012 the 15-company strong group includes privacy experts from the US, Europe and Middle East including representatives from Dentons, Evidon, InMobi, Kaspersky Labs, Mozilla, TRUSTe, Preiskel & Co and Vodafone to ensure the tools and resources deliver support to the whole app ecosystem. The tool framework is based on the latest best practice guidelines globally from government agencies, privacy advocates and trusted industry associations.

The online tool asks developers to answer a few simple questions on how their app handles user data and produces a bespoke privacy policy as HTML code that can be customised and embedded directly into the developer’s application.  The resulting privacy policy is short, complete and easy for consumers to read and understand.

“Consumers’ trust in our industry will be built on transparency and ease of understanding in dealing with their private data,” said MEF Global Chair Andrew Bud.  “That’s a tough combination to deliver, and our research shows that many providers have struggled with it. Now, building on the expertise of our cross-stakeholder group, AppPrivacy delivers credible, practical solutions to ensure best practice in our industry.”

Developed for MEF by AgencyMobile, AppPrivacy™ generates privacy policies that are short, simple to understand and unique to each app. They can be embedded within the app – useful when the app might be used without an internet connection – or hosted remotely, allowing privacy updates to be pushed to the device in real time.

Leading US advocates Future of Privacy Forum’s Executive Director Jules Polonetsky commented: “AppPrivacy is a useful resource that will help developers effectively and easily create a mobile friendly privacy policy."