Apps Offer Little Privacy

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Despite a growing number of people using apps to monitor and track their health, studies show they have little security and non-existent privacy rules.

A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found mobile apps rarely have privacy policies, and those that do are insufficient.

Only 30.5 percent of the apps studied had privacy policies. Average policy length was 1,755 (SD 1,301) words with a reading grade level of 16 (SD 2.9). Two thirds (66.1 percent) of privacy policies did not even specifically address the app itself.

"Only a few privacy policies actually pertained to the app. The remaining privacy policies refer to Web pages unrelated to the app, state general privacy practices or even reference privacy practices of an entity entirely unrelated to the app," study author Ali Sunyaev, an assistant professor in the department of information systems at the University of Cologne, Germany, wrote in an email to Fierce Mobile Healthcare.

“Our findings show that currently mHealth developers often fail to provide app privacy policies. The privacy policies that are available do not make information privacy practices transparent to users, require college-level literacy, and are often not focused on the app itself. Further research is warranted to address why privacy policies are often absent, opaque, or irrelevant, and to find a remedy,” write researchers.

This comes just weeks after FTC Commissioner Julie Brill admitted that when it comes to information collected by apps, "We don't know where that information ultimately goes.”

"The mobile health industry needs to educate the FTC about why collecting health data can provide better health outcomes," said Association for Competitive Technology Executive Director Morgan Reed. "If we fail to do this, the commission could take action that would devastate app developers."