This post mainly answers the question of how and why you have to include a privacy policy in your Facebook application.
In short, YES you do. There are both legal and third-party requirements to be met here.
Web apps, like most apps, often collect some sort of personal data as a rule of thumb for various reasons. Personal data might be used for testing, providing insight into how the application is being used, monetization or for any number of other reasons. Under most countries’ legislations, if processing any kind of personal data, you’re required to have a compliant privacy policy made easily available to your users. Depending on your law of reference, personal data can include even ip addresses – and there are often hefty penalties (including fines, loss of services, audits and potential law suits) for non-compliance.
You can find out how to determine your law of reference here.
Facebook (now Meta) requires users of their app platform to use a privacy policy for an app as soon as you collect data from their users. In Meta Platform Terms you will find the following:
- Provide and comply with a publicly available and easily accessible privacy policy.
- The privacy policy must comply with applicable law and regulations and must accurately and clearly explain what data you are processing, how you are processing it, the purposes for which you are processing it, and how Users may request deletion of that data.
- You may only data as clearly described in your privacy policy and in accordance with all applicable law and regulations, the Meta Platform Terms, and all other applicable terms and policies.
- Your privacy policy will not supersede, modify, or be inconsistent with the Meta Platform Terms or any other applicable terms or policies.
- You must retain all of your privacy policies in effect and provide them to Meta if they ask for them.
- ou will maintain publicly available links to your privacy policies in the privacy policy field in the settings of your App Dashboard, as well as in any App Store that allows you to do so, if applicable, and ensure the links remain current and up to date.
As well as:
- You also must comply with all applicable laws and regulations (including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) and the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”)).
As mentioned in the quote above, if your app is directed towards children based in the US, you’ll be required to comply with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act which introduces more stringent rules for your apps when you target children under the age of 13. Similarly, if you fall under the scope of the GDPR, you’ll need to comply with the GDPR’s guidelines for processing the data of minors.
Meeting your requirements here is actually quite straightforward:
Here’s where our Privacy and Cookie Policy Generator comes in very handy: with 1700+ available clauses, our generator lets you easily include all elements commonly required across many regions and third-party services, while applying the strictest standards by default – giving you the option to fully customize as needed.
All our policies are created by lawyers, monitored by our lawyers and hosted on our servers to ensure that they are always up-to-date with the latest legal changes and third-party requirements.
The generation process is easy and intuitive:
The cookie policy is a section of the privacy policy dedicated to cookies. It details all legally required information including the categories of cookies used, their purposes, names the third parties who install or may install cookies through the website and provides links to said third parties’ respective privacy policy and possible consent forms.
The Generator features a one-click set-up for the cookie policy which then automatically pulls all the relevant cookie information from the services indicated in your privacy policy. If using iubenda’s Cookie Solution to manage your cookies, the link to this cookie policy will be included in your cookie banner by default once activated.
In addition to your cookie policy, you’ll need to notify users about your use of cookies (via something like a site banner), block scripts prior to obtaining consent and be able to show proof of the consent.
🚀 Our Privacy Controls and Cookie Solution makes this task simple. Just click to activate, then integrate the script into your app (or website).
The solution lets you block scripts prior to consent, gives you a customizable banner that links to your cookie policy, lets you remember consent for individual users and indicates proof of consent. It’s also integrated with IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework to facilitate preference management (if you choose to activate this feature).
You can read more about setting up your app for the Cookie Law here or just start generating below (you can easily activate the Cookie Solution from within your site dashboard area).
