April 28, 2016 Release of Smartphone Privacy Outlook III

Outline
In recent years, cases were reported, in which unauthorized applications transmitted users’ information stored in smartphones to third parties, and there has been an increasing need for the development of smartphone users’ safe and secure environment. Accordingly, MIC’s Study Group on Consumer Issues with ICT Services has announced the Smartphone Privacy Initiative in August 2012 to specify concrete guidelines for application providers to handle users’ information properly. In September 2013, MIC announced Smartphone Privacy Initiative II, which recommended the establishment of a system led by the private sector to enable third parties to study each application on the proper handling of users’ information from operational and technical viewpoints.
The task force established in December 2013 concretely studied various issues on the establishment of a system of third party verification through demonstration experiments, summarized the overall picture of the demonstration experiments, and released guidelines (entitled Smartphone Privacy Outlook, issued in May 2014). The task force conducted a field survey on the creation and publication of privacy policies and demonstration experiments of third party verification, and summarized the results (as Smartphone Privacy Outlook II, issued in April 2015).
Recently, following the above initiatives, the task force conducted a field survey on privacy policies and demonstration experiments in a wider field, and summarized the results into Smartphone Privacy Outlook III.