Information Privacy Management for Mobile Health Apps Users: Analysis and Field Study

In recent years, the market for mobile health applications used in smartphones has grown steadily which, despite its benefits, poses a number of privacy problems because of the personal and sensitive data it has access to, So this study sought to analyze the privacy policies of mobile health apps available on the Egyptian version of Google Play Store to disclose its practices and the type and nature of data it collects from users and to verify its adherence to privacy regulations and laws; as well as identifying users' trends towards privacy and their practices in managing and protecting their privacy. Based on two study tools, the researcher used the first tool, a checklist to analyze the content of the privacy policies of 153 mobile health applications, and an electronic questionnaire to detect users' practices to manage their privacy. The study produced a number of findings, the most important of which were: The level of compliance of mhealth apps developers with privacy regulations and laws and their obligation to disclose their practices regarding users' privacy was poor by an average calculation (0.32). Also, 39.9% of apps were classified as having high privacy risks, while 34.6% were classified as having very high privacy risks, 46.2% of sample individuals already use mhealth apps on their smartphones, and 46.2% of users of those apps reported that they never read mhealth apps privacy policies before installing them on their mobile phones