Mobile Health App Privacy Policies: What Patients Want vs. Understand

Abstract

Mobile health applications (apps) are increasingly serving as supplement tools to provider-delivered care in various clinical scenarios. This pilot study explored the relationship between readability of in-app privacy policies and patient comprehension of the policy as well as patient preferences regarding data sharing practices and policy content. Based on interviews with individuals with experience and expertise understanding privacy policies (N=5), a list of important patient-relevant content details was generated for each of the two policies used in the study. Patients (N = 5) then determined important content details from their perspective in the same two policies and answered general questions regarding preferences for personal data sharing. The two app policies differed in length and reading difficulty, yet patients only identified 40% of expert-derived content details in each policy. Patients expressed clear preferences for types and purposes of their data being used by apps and method for privacy policy update notification.