Less than one-third of health apps have privacy policies

In a survey of the 600 mostly commonly used mobile health apps, only 30.5 percent, or 183, have privacy policies, according to a brief communication published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

For the study, researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany sought to assess the availability, scope and transparency of app privacy policies. More than 35,000 mHealth apps currently are available for iOS and Android.

Of the 183 that had privacy policies, the average policy length was 1,755 words. Two-thirds (66.1 percent) 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,” wrote the authors.

They suggested further research to address why privacy policies are often “absent, opaque or irrelevant,” and to find a solution.