Mobile users' privacy bill of rights proposed

3 hrs.

Suzanne Choney

With mobile security loopholes seeming to crop up on a regular basis, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says enough is enough, proposing a mobile users' bill of rights for privacy.

"Mobile smartphone apps represent a powerful technology that will only become more important in the years to come," says the EFF in a statement about a privacy bill of rights for mobile users.

"But the unique advantages of the smartphone as a platform ? a device that's always on and connected, with access to real world-information like user location or camera and microphone input ? also raise privacy challenges. And given the sensitivity of the data that many consumers store on their phones, the stakes are even higher for manufacturers, carriers, app developers and mobile ad networks to respect user privacy in order to earn and retain the ever-important trust of the public."

With more than 500,000 iPhone apps, and nearly 400,000 for Android apps, the EFF wants app developers to play a major role in this issue. "Application developers are in a position to take the lead on these issues, whether that means selecting an ad network for its responsible practices or supporting efforts by platforms to incorporate privacy-protective policies and practices."

No. 1 on that bill of rights should be this, the EFF says: "Users have a right to exercise control over what personal data applications collect about them and how they use it. Although some access control exists at the operating-system level in smartphones, developers should seek to empower users even when it's not technically or legally required by the platform. The right to individual control also includes the ability to remove consent and withdraw that data from application servers."

Also high on the list: "focused" data collection. "Address book information and photo collections have already been the subject of major privacy stories and user backlash. Other especially sensitive areas include location data, and the contents and metadata from phone calls and text messages."

Then there's transparency. "Users need to know what data an app is accessing, how long the data is kept, and with whom it will be shared," the EFF says. "Users should be able to access human-readable privacy and security policies, both before and after installation. Transparency is particularly critical in instances where the user doesn?t directly interact with the application (as with, for example, Carrier IQ)."

Even if such a bill of rights were passed, in the end "it's up to the user to beware," said tech analyst Jeff Kagan. "What should happen is all users should shelve their smartphones and choose a plain old cellphone. But that will never happen. And the industry knows it. Users are hooked."

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Source: http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/mobile-users-privacy-bill-rights-proposed-321970

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