Sunyaev Ali, Dehling Tobias, Taylor Patrick L, Mandl Kenneth D
Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2015 Apr;22(e1):e28-33. doi: 10.1136/amiajnl-2013-002605. Epub 2014 Aug 21.
Mobile health (mHealth) customers shopping for applications (apps) should be aware of app privacy practices so they can make informed decisions about purchase and use. We sought to assess the availability, scope, and transparency of mHealth app privacy policies on iOS and Android. Over 35,000 mHealth apps are available for iOS and Android. Of the 600 most commonly used apps, only 183 (30.5%) had privacy policies. Average policy length was 1755 (SD 1301) words with a reading grade level of 16 (SD 2.9). Two thirds (66.1%) of privacy policies did not specifically address the app itself. Our findings show that currently mHealth developers often fail to provide app privacy policies. The privacy policies that are available do not make information privacy practices transparent to users, require college-level literacy, and are often not focused on the app itself. Further research is warranted to address why privacy policies are often absent, opaque, or irrelevant, and to find a remedy.
购买移动医疗（mHealth）应用程序（app）的用户应了解应用程序的隐私惯例，以便他们能够在购买和使用时做出明智的决定。我们试图评估iOS和安卓系统上移动医疗应用程序隐私政策的可用性、范围和透明度。iOS和安卓系统上有超过35000款移动医疗应用程序。在600款最常用的应用程序中，只有183款（30.5%）有隐私政策。隐私政策的平均长度为1755（标准差1301）个单词，阅读难度相当于16年级（标准差2.9）。三分之二（66.1%）的隐私政策没有具体涉及应用程序本身。我们的研究结果表明，目前移动医疗应用程序开发者常常不提供应用程序隐私政策。现有的隐私政策没有向用户阐明信息隐私惯例，要求具备大学水平的读写能力，而且往往没有聚焦于应用程序本身。有必要开展进一步研究，以探究隐私政策为何常常缺失、晦涩难懂或与应用程序无关，并找到解决办法。
