Windows Store, which is Microsoft’s upcoming app store for Windows 8 applications, contains one of the strongest app privacy policy that we have seen so far in compiling our comprehensive guide to app-store privacy requirements. Microsoft’s Developer Agreement says:
If your app enables access to and the use of any Internet-based services, or otherwise collects or transmits any user’s personal information, you must maintain a privacy policy. You are responsible for informing customers of your privacy policy (including by submitting that policy to us for display to customers). Your privacy policy must (i) comply with applicable laws and regulations, (ii) inform users of the information collected by your app and how that information is used, stored, secured and disclosed, and (iii) describe the controls that users have over the use and sharing of their information, and how they may access their information. If your app uses the geolocation, texting/SMS, webcam or microphone capabilities, you must also provide access to your privacy policy in the app’s settings as displayed in the Windows settings charm.
What’s good about this:
- A privacy policy is required for any Internet-based service, even if personal information is not collected;
- It specifies when access to the privacy policy must be provided from within the application itself (notably, this applies to geolocation features); and
- It requires submission of the policy to Microsoft, presumably for the purpose of displaying it in Microsoft-controlled Windows Store listings.
Microsoft deserves credit for upping the bar on privacy requirements, and here’s hoping that they will also make privacy policies directly available in the store, and enforce the requirement as part of the onboarding process for new apps. As discussed in a prior post about Apple’s App Store, the leading players in app distribution still have a ways to go before privacy policies can be consistently and easily found by users.