iPhone AppStore Rejection – Personal User Data
October 22nd, 2009 by sAargh, I got my first iPhone app rejection!
My first 6 submissions and updates all went smoothly, but this time I got dinged by the dreaded “device data collection”/”personal user data” notice for uploading info to my webserver.
Your application cannot be posted to the App Store because it violates section 3.3.6 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:
“Any form of user or device data collection, or image, picture or voice capture or recording performed by the Application (collectively “Recordings”), and any form of user data, content or information processing, maintenance, uploading, syncing, or transmission performed by the Application (collectively “Transmissions”) must comply with all applicable privacy laws and regulations as well as any Apple program requirements related to such aspects, including but not limited to any notice or consent requirements. In particular, a reasonably conspicuous audio, visual, or other indicator must be displayed to the user as part of the Application to indicate that a Recording is taking place.”
Please refer to the attached images.
Please make it clear to the user that their personal user data is being uploaded to your server, and obtain their consent before submission.
I think I screwed up with my fix, though. In the new version, I now throw up an alert each time someone shares info with my server which is sure to annoy users.
After googling a bit for this type of rejection, it looks like they’ve changed the verbage of this rejection, and they used to suggest a solution with this type of rejection:
Your application cannot be posted to the App Store because it violates section 3.3.6 of the iPhone SDK Agreement:
“Any form of user or device data collection, or image, picture or voice capture or recording performed by the Application (collectively “Recordings”), and any form of user data, content or information uploading, syncing, or transmission performed by the Application (collectively “Transmissions”) must comply with all applicable privacy laws and regulations as well as any Apple program requirements related to such aspects, including but not limited to any notice or consent requirements. In particular, a reasonably conspicuous visual indicator must be displayed to the user as part of the Application to indicate that a Recording is taking place.”
Please make it clear to the user that their personal user data is being uploaded to your server by way of an alert upon first launch or a text label before the score submission.
I’m tempted to reject the current binary and make the warning less obtrusive, but I don’t want to reset my place in the approval queue.
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