We have partnered with Intuit to provide app developers open source code for a new app privacy tool. The open source code enables app developers to implement short-form privacy notices—simple, easily understandable screens that clearly inform consumers what data the app is collecting and with whom the data is shared. The screens supplement traditional privacy policies by summarizing important information in a consumer-friendly design.
App developers want to inform their users about what data is collected about them and who it is shared with but traditional privacy policies written in legalese are difficult for consumers to understand. By incorporating these consumer-friendly notices, app developers will create a trusted standard for communicating with consumers, without need for government regulation.
Barb Lawler, Intuit’s Chief Privacy Officer said: “Intuit took great care to design an innovative, at-a-glance mobile privacy notice for Intuit QuickBooks Online, the number one cloud accounting solution for small businesses. With this open source code, small app developers can use our template for their mobile privacy notice, which we hope helps increase adoption of the latest mobile privacy guidelines while enhancing transparency for consumers.”
The Alliance and several of its members, including Intuit, forged common ground with consumer and privacy advocates during the 2012-2013 U.S. government-hosted multistakeholder talks on mobile app privacy. The result of those discussions was a Mobile App Privacy Voluntary Code of Conduct (pdf). The code released today enables developers to comply with that Code of Conduct.
Read NTIA’s statement on the short-form notices.
Get the code now on GitHub and read the FAQs.
Intuit incorporated the short-form notice in Intuit Quickbooks Online.
