Google Play Store privacy labels are “a joke”

Improving both Google Play Store reviews and security is a top priority for the company. In recent years, it has presented initiatives in this direction, first with the new privacy notices and, later, with an improved comment system.

One of the objectives, especially with a view to greater transparency with the user so that he knows what data each application collects and where it ends up, was to set up a new confidentiality system. However, according to one study, Google Play Store tags are ‘useless’ and ‘a joke’.

“We don’t collect data. Well, yes”

A priori, the privacy section that Google implemented some time ago is quite useful. At a glance, the user can see what the app is doing with our data. Whether you collect it, how much you collect it, whether you share it with third parties, whether we can delete app data, and whether you follow the platform’s privacy policy.

It’s an interesting way, as I said, for the user to easily know what is being done with their data. Besides, it’s quite easy to dig into it because we can click on “see details” to have a better view of what the app does and a link to its privacy policy.

In short: it is a measure of transparency, but as it happens many times, even if the idea was well intentioned, the reality is somewhat different. “Play Store labels are a complete failure,” in the words of Jen Caltrider, manager of Mozilla’s Privacy Not Include project.

What we see in the Play St ore vs. what appears in Application Policy

Mozilla will probably sound familiar to you as the developer of the Firefox browser, but they also have a foundation where they fight to make the internet a healthier and safer place for users. And, of course, from time to time they publish studies in which they seek to inform users, but also companies so that they can improve their policies or discover possible security vulnerabilities.

Caltrider was quite direct in the statements of the last report:

“The Google Play Store data security labels are misleading and give users a false sense of security. Nutrition labels help us eat better, so it’s time for data security labels to be truthful and help us eat better. protect our privacy.

Now why does he say that? Mozilla compared the privacy policies of 40 apps (Top 20 Paid and Top 20 Free) on the Play Store and found, in some cases, inconsistencies with the Store’s privacy labels.

According to the research, 80% of apps they reviewed found discrepancies between privacy policies and store labels, being 16 of the 40 requests, 40%, deficient in this direction. Minecraft, Twitter and Facebook are part of this group.

15 apps “need improvement” and only six of the 40 apps got the pass. Interestingly, almost all of them are games and, among them, Candy Crush Saga. We leave you a more illustrative table below:

You may think that these types of reports are made solely for the purpose of harming the competition, but none of that. Indeed, at the end of each of these surveys and publications, the companies that generate them offer a series of recommendations to other companies to improve their policies, forcing those who do not comply with them to be more transparent.

More information | Mozilla Foundation