Apple announced that from today, December 8th, developers will be required to provide new privacy details to users in the App Store. Introduced at the WWDC these privacy ‘nutrition labels’ are Apple’s goal to better inform consumers about the privacy practices of individual applications.
App pages on the App Store will have a new section that compiles an app’s privacy practices. Apple emphasized on its blog that there are various different pieces of important information that developers should keep in mind while preparing the App Privacy ‘nutrition labels’ for their respective applications.
Apple implements App Store privacy nutrition label requirements
Apple outlined the information that developers are required to provide on their App Store pages for customers in a blog post on its Apple Developer webpage. The general idea is that consumers should know beforehand about how an app is managing their privacy before downloading it.
Later this year, the App Store will help users understand an app’s privacy practices before they download the app on any Apple platform. On each app’s product page, users can learn about some of the data types the app may collect and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. You’ll need to provide information about your app’s privacy practices, including the practices of third-party partners whose code you integrate into your app, in App Store Connect. This information will be required to submit new apps and app updates to the App Store starting December 8, 2020.
Apple has shared in detail about what exactly it is asking developers for these privacy ‘nutrition labels’ on the App Store. The various data types that an app might collect from users include:
- Contact info
- Health and Fitness
- Financial info
- Location
- Sensitive info
- Contacts
- User Content
- Browsing History
- Search History
- Identifiers
- Purchases
- Usage Data
- Diagnostics
In addition to the list mentioned above, the requirements also consist of sensitive information like political opinion, biometric data, disability, pregnancy or childbirth information, racial or ethnic data, sexual orientation, or religious or philosophical beliefs.
Developers are also required to identify if each data type is linked to the user’s identity with the help of their device, account, or any other details. Apple has made it pretty clear that this information will be required at the time of submitting new apps and app updates to the App Store starting today. Existing apps without privacy labels will remain open for download.
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