Mr. Henry Waxman and G.K. Butterfield from the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee have roped in some developers of iOS apps to reason on how they collect data from the users. This is being done as a part of an inquiry into privacy and security practices on mobile phone applications.
The inquiry is being done due to the increase in the privacy concerns among the smartphone users, that are not regulated as other aspects of the law system. This year, one of the major privacy concern arise when reports came out that Path is collecting users’ contacts and storing it in their servers without the knowledge of the user. And the company acknowledged it saying that they do collect users’ data but for better matching of friends on the largely growing social network.
Mr. Henry Waxman and Mr. G.K. Butterfield has sent out letters to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook asking for clarification of the privacy protection that they company is making to protect users’ data. Now, the letters have been sent to networks that deal with users’ data like Path, Facebook, Instagram and other social networks that are popular on iOS. Replies are expected to reach them by April 12th. And we just need to wait until then to see what action would be taken to regulate the law and order for apps dealing with users’ data.