Google Play Now Shows You How Apps Will Use Your Data
The new version of Google’s Play Store includes a section named “Data Safety,” where users can see safety and privacy guidelines before they download an app. Specifically, you can see how data is collected, protected, and used before downloading any application from the Play Store.
As Google said in an official post: “We heard from users and app developers that displaying the data an app collects, without additional context, is not enough. That’s why we designed the Data safety section to allow developers to clearly mark what data is being collected and for what purpose it’s being used.”
In the “Data Safety” section, users can see the following:
- Whether the developer is sharing data with third parties
- Whether the developer is collecting their data, and for what purpose
- The app’s security practices (data encryption in transit, whether you can ask for data to be deleted, etc.)
- Whether the developer has validated its security practices against a global security standard
- Whether the app has committed to following Google Play’s families policy designed to protect children in the Play Store
The new section comes eight months after its initial announcement (July 2022) and covers both first-party and third-party app developers. It is very similar to what Apple lists as “nutrition labels” for its apps.
However, the key point that users have is more control over what data downloaded apps can access. For instance, they can turn on/off the location settings, grant permission for one-time use, and see what level of access each app has.
