Your product has a purpose, and that purpose should help you identify the information you actually need. Blindly or willfully grabbing information beyond that can subject your product to bad press, excessive government demands, or even financial penalties. Build trust with your users instead by only collecting information as needed.
RESPECT YOUR DATA
Limit and protect the data you collect and retain.
Protecting your users’ privacy requires you to be thoughtful about the data you collect and hold. By carefully considering the costs and benefits of collecting data and by properly safeguarding the information that you do collect, you may prevent privacy harms and increase consumer trust in your product.
IDENTIFY AND COLLECT THE DATA YOU ACTUALLY NEED.
Case Study
Case Study
Google Slammed for “Wardriving by Design”
85% of consumers limit how or whether they use a mobile app based on privacy concerns (2012).
RETAIN DATA ONLY AS LONG AS YOU NEED IT.
Just because you need location information to make your service work doesn’t mean you actually need to keep that information. Determine how long you need to keep the data you do collect and delete it once it is no longer necessary to accomplish the purpose for which it was collected. This helps ensure that you’re not retaining information that users don’t expect you to keep and reduces the potential harm of data breach and other privacy hazards.
54% of mobile app users have decided to not install an app when they discovered how much personal information they would need to share in order to use it (2012).