Researchers looked at the privacy policies of the 600 most commonly used apps of the more than 35,000 available mHealth apps on iOS and Android. Of the 600 most popular ones, only 183, or 30.5 percent, had a privacy policy, according to the study.
The privacy policies that did exist were often long and difficult to understand. The average length of the policies was 1,755 words and required a college-level education. Researchers also found 66.1 percent of privacy policies did not specifically address the app.
The study suggests the majority of mHealth apps don’t provide privacy policies, and those that do are not accessible, according to the authors.
“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,” the authors concluded. They suggest further research is needed to understand why privacy policies are “often absent, opaque or irrelevant, and to find a remedy.”
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