SIIA today voted in favor of the Short Form Notice Code of Conduct developed as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Privacy Multi-stakeholder Process on Mobile Application Transparency.
With the passage of this Code of Conduct, consumers will have more information about how their data is being used by mobile apps, and a greater ability to protect their privacy.
We don’t agree completely with all of the elements of the code, and we will continue to work to ensure that companies have substantial flexibility in providing privacy notices. However, this Code of Conduct empowers consumers and provides an important roadmap for developers to create ‘short form’ privacy notices for consumer apps. We look forward to working with our members and the industry to encourage implementation of the guidelines set out by this Code of Conduct.
In a time of rapidly evolving technology, industry self-regulation is the most effective way to maintain the right balance between consumer confidence and continued innovation. Without collaborative, voluntary efforts such as this mobile privacy code, we risk heavy-handed legislation or government regulation that would harm tech innovation, job creation and economic progress.
SIIA continues to strongly support the Obama Administration’s commitment to creating voluntary privacy codes of conduct through multistakeholder collaboration, and we look forward to engaging in future initiatives to this end.
Ken Wasch is President of SIIA. Follow the SIIA Software team on twitter at @SIIASoftware.