Mobile App Series: Privacy by Design
Report on Patient Privacy Volume 23, no 1 (January 2023) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said a data breach at a Medicare subcontractor impacted the personally identifiable information and protected...more
On November 3, 2022, an Illinois circuit court judge dismissed a Biometric Information Privacy Act (Privacy Act or BIPA) putative class action against Samsara, Inc., a DashCam developer. DashCam is a safety technology for...more
If your company creates health-related apps, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has set out some key considerations: - Make accurate representations. Clearly explain how people’s information will be used and shared and then...more
Google Play’s “data safety form” is now live. Developers can now submit the form for early review and feedback. Starting in April 2022, Google will require this label and a privacy policy for all new and existing apps. This...more
On April 21, 2021, the United States Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights held a hearing to discuss Google and Apple’s role in the mobile app ecosystem and their effect on third-party app...more
As of this week, Apple’s requirements for apps to follow its AppTrackingTransparency are now in effect. These requirements went hand-in-hand with the iOS 14.5 launch, and impacts how an app can track users and access their...more
On January 11, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it has settled with a California-based photo app developer involving allegations that it was building and using its users’ photos and videos to create facial...more
The Federal Trade Commission announced on January 11 that Everalbum, the developer of the photo storage application called Ever, settled allegations that it deceived users about its use of facial recognition technology and...more
In August, Viacom and a number of other app developers and ad-tech companies reached a settlement with parents who had alleged that the companies were illegally selling children’s personal information for behavioral...more
During its summer conference this year, Apple announced that later in 2020, it would require application developers to provide in-depth detail regarding their data collection and use practices to give users more information...more
When Apple announced that one of the major focuses of iOS 14 would be enhancing user privacy, many in the tech community had questions. How would these changes be rolled out? How would they affect not only the mobile...more
“Regulators ordered China’s app developers and third-party service providers to halt illegal collection and use of personal data in a sweep targeting some of the country’s largest apps,” reports TechNode.com....more
Facebook announced on September, 20th, that it has suspended tens of thousands of apps from interoperating with the Facebook platform alleging misuse of Facebook members’ personal data. This is a continuation of the Cambridge...more
Many of the most popular mobile apps collect personally identifiable information. Although most app developers are not required to display a privacy policy under federal law, they are contractually required to do so pursuant...more
The Federal Trade Commission on October 23, 2017, provided guidance on how it will enforce the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) with respect to audio recordings of children. This comes as part of a wave of...more
Beginning March 15, 2017, Google began removing apps from Google Play, its online marketplace where apps and other digital media are offered for download and use on the Android platform, for failing to comply with Google’s...more
As more industries look to capitalize on mobile platforms, and as smartphones and tablets increasingly become the “first screen” for customers, mobile apps will continue to play an integral role in connecting businesses with...more
Pokémon Go is a location-based augmented reality game in which players use their mobile device to catch Pokémon in the players’ real-world surroundings by utilizing the camera, GPS, and gyroscope features of the mobile...more
In June 2016, India-based online advertising behemoth InMobi Ltd. agreed to pay a $ 950,000 fine to resolve Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allegations that its data collection practices violated the Children’s Online Privacy...more
OCR’s guidance presents hypothetical scenarios and key questions to help app developers determine when they are subject to HIPAA regulations. On February 11, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil...more
Similar to website browsers, many mobile applications collect a variety of information from the user, including, the user’s identity, usage history, past log-ins, and location. This enables the application to provide various...more
App providers and developers are in the hot seat again. On the same day that the FTC fined the social networking app Path $800,000 over allegations that it collected personal information without obtaining consumers’ consent,...more
The Federal Trade Commission has emphasized in the past that general privacy protections in the website space apply equally to mobile services, but a new FTC Staff Report released on Friday hones in on some privacy...more
Data use and sharing disclosures on mobile devices need work, the FTC said in a staff report released last week. The report recommends ways that actors in the mobile marketplace—such as mobile operating system providers,...more