Nonprofit Seeks to Add Privacy Risk Labels to All Apps by 2029
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Internet Safety Labs is embracing crowdsourcing and some automation as it attempts to label the privacy and safety risks of all websites and mobile apps by 2029, said Bryce Simpson, an ISL safety researcher, at the USENIX Privacy Engineering Practice and Respect (PEPR) conference Tuesday.
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It's a "really audacious goal," said Simpson. The nonprofit has a pilot program that will train anyone to be an ISL-certified safety inspector, said Simpson. So far, 25 participants have entered and seven have received certification, he said. They have inspected 161 apps. The pilot will continue through 2025, followed by a commercial launch in 2026, he said.
One challenge is retesting apps after they’ve undergone updates, said ISL Executive Director Lisa LaVasseur. Journalists, schools and concerned members of the public sometimes ask for this, she said. If ISL can build its crowdsourced pool of inspectors to “thousands of people around the world,” then it will test apps “with a lot more regularity and frequency," she added.
LaVasseur said she sees a broad audience for her organization’s safety labels, including regulators, policymakers, journalists and litigators.