Telecom Lead Asia: GSMA announced Accountability Framework to ensure privacy protection for mobile app users.
By signing up to an Accountability Framework, a new tool, GSMA members can now formally commit to ensuring their business practices are compliant with the Guidelines.
GSMA’s Accountability Framework for Mobile Operators
“The GSMA and its members were the first to address the ongoing challenges of mobile app privacy through our Guidelines last year,” said Tom Phillips, Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer, GSMA. “Now, we continue to lead in this space by introducing this Framework – a direct response to calls for greater responsibility and accountability in the area of app privacy. If adopted across the mobile ecosystem, these Guidelines and Framework would help ensure consistent and comprehensive levels of protection for consumers across multiple platforms.”
Since the publication of the Guidelines, several European mobile operators – Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telekom Austria, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Vodafone – have implemented them for their own-branded mobile apps.
Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO of Telekom Austria Group, said: “This is important for social networks and cloud services where we observe a growing concern among users regarding their personal data. Our own apps have a very high level of privacy and we take the protection of personal data of our customers extremely seriously.”
Stephen Deadman, Group Privacy Officer for Vodafone, said: “Accountability forms an essential element in Vodafone’s privacy programme, and in ensuring privacy-by-design in our app development process. These principles will help companies across the ecosystem create the internal governance and assurance processes to ensure the guidelines are effectively implemented and deliver better privacy experiences for mobile users in practice.”
App privacy will remain an important public policy issue for the foreseeable future. This is shown by the intention of the EU Article 29 Working Party to issue an opinion on mobile app privacy in February 2013 and by EU Commissioner Reding’s express reference to the importance of app privacy in her speech last month.
