FTC Issued New Guidelines for Mobile Privacy

A series of privacy workshops held last year have led to the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) 2013 report detailing the best practices for mobile operating systems, app developers, and ad networks. The report, “Mobile Privacy Disclosures: Building Trust with Transparency,” recommends ways that key players in the rapidly expanding mobile marketplace can better inform consumers about their data practices. The FTC staff report is based on the Commission’s enforcement and policy experience with mobile issues, written submissions that they received from industry stakeholders and a May 2012 FTC workshop, which brought together representatives from industry, trade associations, academia, and consumer privacy groups to explore privacy disclosures on mobile devices. Describing the explosive growth of mobile services, the report also notes that mobile technology raises unique privacy concerns, citing recent data that shows consumers are increasingly concerned about their privacy on mobile devices. The report states that 57 percent of all app users have uninstalled an app because of privacy concerns, or declined to install one. Fewer than a third of American mobile users said they were in control of the personal data on their mobile devices. Under the recommendations suggested in the FTC report, consumers would gain a much better understanding of how their data is gathered and used by key players in the mobile universe.