Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/11/privacy-nutrition-labels-in-apples-app-store.html
Apple will start requiring standardized privacy labels for apps in its app store, starting in December:
Apple allows data disclosure to be optional if all of the following conditions apply: if it’s not used for tracking, advertising or marketing; if it’s not shared with a data broker; if collection is infrequent, unrelated to the app’s primary function, and optional; and if the user chooses to provide the data in conjunction with clear disclosure, the user’s name or account name is prominently displayed with the submission.
Otherwise, the privacy labeling is mandatory and requires a fair amount of detail. Developers must disclose the use of contact information, health and financial data, location data, user content, browsing history, search history, identifiers, usage data, diagnostics, and more. If a software maker is collecting the user’s data to display first or third-party adverts, this has to be disclosed.
These disclosures then get translated to a card-style interface displayed with app product pages in the platform-appropriate App Store.
The concept of a privacy nutrition label isn’t new, and has been well-explored at CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University.