The privacy policy of some apps has tens of thousands of words and it takes half an hour to read.
Have you read the privacy policy on the app carefully?
The privacy policy of some apps has tens of thousands of words. It takes half an hour to read it. Have you read it?
Recently, a survey conducted by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee showed that the app's privacy policy is lengthy, and the large fonts are bold and difficult to play a significant role in prompting.
An investigation by all-media reporters from Guangzhou Daily also found that the user agreement and privacy policy of the app are often thousands or tens of thousands of words.
Text/He Yingsi, an all-media reporter of Guangzhou Daily
The privacy policy is lengthy and often contains tens of thousands of words
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Association’s WeChat official account released an investigation and pointed out that the app’s user agreement and privacy policy are lengthy, and the large paragraphs of bold characters in the article make it difficult to distinguish which are the prominent reminder clauses.
The Guangzhou Daily all-media reporters selected 5 top-ranked common apps in the free app list for investigation, and found that the privacy policies all exceeded 10,000 words, and the user agreement reached thousands or even tens of thousands of words.
It takes half an hour to read the entire privacy policy, plus the user agreement, which takes nearly an hour for an app at most.
The content of such a lengthy agreement makes netizens joke that "I have read and agree to the user agreement and privacy policy" is the most panicking.
Last year, Guangming Daily and Wuhan University conducted a survey on the status quo of app privacy protocols, showing that 77.8% of users “rarely or never” read the privacy protocol when installing the app, and 69.69% of users ignored the update prompt of the app privacy protocol.
Some apps cannot be copied and downloaded and search is inconvenient
The reporter's investigation also found that only 2 of the 5 apps can copy and download/forward the privacy policy and user agreement, 1 can be copied, and the remaining 2 cannot be copied and downloaded, and need to be downloaded on the official website.
The 5 apps could not find a place for retrieval in the reading interface of the privacy policy and user agreement.
Chen Huai, a partner lawyer of Guangdong Jinqiao Baixin Law Firm, pointed out that the privacy policy must comply with the provisions for easy access and storage, otherwise it will violate the provisions of Article 17, paragraph 2 of the Personal Information Protection Law, and users can complain to the Internet Information Department.
Fortunately, 3 of the 5 apps surveyed have launched a "concise version of privacy policy", but some of the abbreviated privacy policies still have thousands of words, and it takes 7 minutes to read.
In addition, all apps provide a list of personal information collection, and some lists are listed in a table, which is simple and clear.
"Clear and understandable" is a statutory requirement for privacy policy language
Is a 10,000-word privacy policy necessary?
Chen Huai pointed out that analyzing whether the content of the privacy policy is necessary mainly depends on the scope and specific application of the personal information actually obtained by the app.
"App developers should customize and tailor their privacy policies according to the actual scope of the user's personal information, rather than copying and copying the privacy policies of some Internet leading companies, otherwise it will be tedious and unnecessary." Chen Huai believes that it is quite Part of the privacy policy only focuses on the legal requirement that the content of the notification should be "true, accurate and complete", while ignoring "clear and easy to understand" is also a legal requirement for the language of the privacy policy.
Chen Huai suggested that app developers need to cut unnecessary notification content according to the actual situation. For example, the app currently has no data going overseas and has not obtained the relevant license filing, so there is no need to inform this in a large space.
Reduce unnecessary disclaimers and focus on the scope of the user's rights, such as forming a summary and flowchart of the core content to help users quickly understand.
In addition, developers can also inform users step by step according to the functions actually used by users, which greatly reduces the length of text and helps users understand the scope of personal information and their own rights that need to be obtained for each behavior. Browse as a tourist, and then notify or prompt one by one if the user needs to enable other functions of the App, such as registration and login, sending positioning, real-name comments, and uploading photos.
"The concise version of the privacy regulations starts from the above aspects and minimizes the difficulty of reading and comprehension for users, which is worthy of promotion." Chen Huai said.
For users themselves, Chen Huai pointed out that they should recognize the importance of personal information, especially sensitive information such as face recognition information and fingerprint information, which cannot be modified arbitrarily by users. Therefore, users must carefully read the privacy policy to understand the use of personal information after obtaining it. and permissions.
"Many users have the mentality of 'laying flat' and think that personal information will be leaked sooner or later. In fact, we can correct the information that is wrongly registered by individuals by exercising the right of correction to prevent the spread, or we can ask the personal information processor to delete the information when uninstalling the app. The personal information obtained may be anonymized, and the ways and procedures for exercising these rights will generally be reflected in the privacy policy.” Chen Huai pointed out that users should also know how to use the privacy policy to exercise the rights of the owner of personal information, such as the right to correction and right of deletion.
How can users better read the privacy policy?
Method 1: Users can quickly obtain the content they need through the directory of the privacy policy.
Method 2: Users can quickly check by searching for "keywords". For example, by searching for the keyword "company", they can generally quickly find the entity of the personal information processor and other third-party companies that use personal information in association; by searching for "collection", Generally, you can quickly find the scope and type of information collected by the App; search for the keyword "delete" to learn about the procedures for processing personal information if you uninstall or log out of your account.
The use of App fraud has become one of the main criminal methods of telecommunication network fraud
Text/Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Sibei
The reporter learned from the Cyberspace Administration of China on the 14th that in recent years, the use of apps to defraud has become one of the main criminal methods of telecommunications and network fraud cases, accounting for about 60% of the total number of cases.
Among them, there are many fraudulent apps such as online part-time billing and quick loans, especially some apps that imitate major banks and financial platforms are quite confusing and deceptive, and the general public needs to increase their awareness of prevention.
In order to effectively protect the safety of the people's property, the Cyberspace Administration of China, together with the Ministry of Public Security and other relevant departments, has thoroughly rectified new types of illegal crimes on the telecommunications network, built a national fraud-related black sample database, established an Internet early warning and dissuasion platform, accurately alerted potential victims, and safeguarded the people's personal interests. Benefit.
Since the beginning of this year, the Anti-Fraud Center of the Cyberspace Administration of China has investigated and cracked down on 878,000 fraudulent websites, 73,000 apps, and 75,000 cross-border phone calls, and included them in the national fraud-related black sample database.
At present, the national fraud-related black sample database has covered and handled 3.187 million fraudulent websites, 469,000 apps, and 397,000 cross-border phone calls, and the Internet warning and dissuasion platform has warned over 600 million people.
The relevant responsible comrades of the National Cyberspace Administration of China said that various website platforms, especially those with social attributes, should strictly implement corporate responsibilities, strengthen the handling of fraudulent information, and resolutely take the first pass.
Mobile phone manufacturers, security manufacturers, browser manufacturers, etc. should actively access the Internet early warning and dissuasion platforms, and should connect them all without leaving any dead ends.