A study conducted by the Mozilla Foundation has revealed that safety labels for Android apps on the Google Play Store have “serious loopholes” that can result in misleading or incorrect information being provided. The study examined the privacy policies and labels of the 20 most popular paid apps and 20 most popular free apps on the store. Approximately 80% of the apps were found to have false or misleading labels due to discrepancies between privacy policies and self-reported information on Google’s data safety form. Three of the apps examined – League of Stickman Acti, Terraria, and UC Browser – had no information in their data safety sections. Google implemented a new data safety section last year in response to Apple’s app privacy labels. The labels permit developers to contextualize the necessity of data collection and the security principles used to protect the information. However, the self-reported labels may not accurately reflect the apps’ data gathering policies. Mozilla is recommending the adoption of a universal nutrition labeling standard for tech giants Apple and Google, alongside increased enforcement against non-compliant apps.
Source: The Hacker News
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