Availability and quality of mobile health app privacy policies
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Lack of availability of privacy information seems to be an issue for mental health apps in general.
“This lack of availability of privacy information seems to be an issue for mental health apps in general [21].”
From A Systematic Review of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Behavioral Activation Apps for Depression (2016) · cites this paper as [21]
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- Authors
- Sunyaev, A., Dehling, T., Taylor, P. L., & Mandl, K. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Boston Children's Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sunyaev, Ali
- Venue
- Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2014-08-21
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- e1
- Pages
- e28-e33
- ISSN
- 1067-5027 (ISSN-L)
- 1527-974X
- PMC
- PMC11888337
- OpenAlex
- W1481354592
- Cited by
- 360
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 40 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 84.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Kölner Universitäts PublikationsServer (Universität zu Köln) (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Universität zu Köln
- National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000101)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Thoreau and American Literature
- Keywords
- mobile health apps, privacy policies, data privacy, iOS, Android, App Store, user literacy, health data privacy
- MeSH terms
- Telemedicine, Privacy, Mobile Applications
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