Proposed Legislation to Enhance Privacy for Mobile App Users
Proposed Legislation to Enhance Privacy for Mobile App Users by UCStrategies Staff
Last week, legislation was proposed by a U.S. lawmaker in order to give cell phone users the ability to ask applications to stop collecting personal data as well as delete past information.
On Wednesday, a discussion draft of the Application Privacy, Protection, and Security Act was released by U.S. Representative Hank Johnson from Georgia. This bill proposes that mobile apps must notify users about the information they collect and get permission before obtaining any personal data.
Furthermore, the proposal states that mobile app users can alert the developer when they are no longer using the app and want them to stop collecting data. From there, the app developers would be required to erase any personal data “to the extent practicable,” in the words of the proposal.
These mobile privacy law ideas were petitioned by Johnson through the AppRights.us website, which was launched in July of last year.
According to a recent statement, Johnson said that “because the majority of the feedback that we received on AppRights expressed strong support for user control, transparency, and security, we incorporated these principles into the bill.”
He continues by saying that “many of you also told us that simple mechanisms are important to protecting your privacy on mobile devices” and “after listening to these concerns, we have written provisions to address these concerns without threatening the functionality or integrity of the mobile apps that you love.”
Although not yet formally introduced as legislation, this proposal would also give the U.S. Federal Trade Commission permission to enforce these privacy rules for apps. In the event of privacy violations, state attorneys general could also bring lawsuits against the violating app developers.
Executive director of the e-commerce trade group NetChoice, Steve DelBianco, requested that lawmakers allow the mobile app privacy process, led by the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to have sufficient time to come up with recommendations. These participants met again last Thursday as part of the ongoing schedule of meetings in the process.
In a recent email, DelBianco stated that “we have been at this for six months, and have some ways yet to go. So I hope the congressman will hold his bill until our multi-stakeholder process proves it can generate consensus best practices."
Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, took a step beyond Johnson’s proposal. He has indicated plans that would re-introduce a bill requiring mobile apps to get express authorizations from the app users before they would be allowed to collect any geolocation data.
NetChoice, however, has opposed this bill, indicating that it could mean a pop-up notice for each and every time a mobile app collects this geolocation information. (RP) Link