When installing a new APP, checking the privacy agreement is often the first step. Are you one of those who choose to skip the many pages of the agreement, and directly scroll to the bottom of the page just to quickly tick the ‘I have read and agreed to all the terms mentioned above”’ button? Have you ever tried to read through it, only to find that the whole text is so vague in descriptions and has so many obscure technical terms that you simply give up reading?
Page of the user agreement and privacy policy in an APP
This type of scene does not seem unfamiliar. However, from the moment you click ‘Agree’, you actually start ‘streaking’ in the flood of information. Under the cover of a flawed APP privacy agreement, many APPs randomly search for loopholes to spy on users’ privacy through obscure and complicated provisions, which significantly aggravates users’ security risks.
In response to this chaos in user security, eight undergraduates from Wuhan University formed an APP Privacy Agreement Team to try to resolve this issue. Relying on the platform of WHU School of Law, the team carried out a number of research projects in the field of APP user privacy and security under the guidance of three mentors. Eventually, the outstanding team won the National Grand Prize in the 17th “Challenge Cup” National College Students Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Works Competition with their work “Challenges and Responses to the Personal Information Protection System of APP Privacy Agreement: Empirical Analysis Based on 1,036 Questionnaires and 150 APPs”. Remarkably, this is the first time that WHU has won the National Grand Prize in the fields of philosophy and social sciences through social survey reports and academic papers.
The team in the national contest
“This competition involves different disciplinary backgrounds. Compared with scientific research breakthroughs in the natural sciences and engineering, innovation in the social sciences is less precise and intuitive. It involves tryouts, which requires a thorough understanding of what social effects the entire innovation can produce,” remarked Shen Chen, a specially-appointed associate researcher at WHU’s School of Law. “It’s not that we can successfully realize any idea we have in mind through carrying out repeated experiments.” In other words, the choice of the project topic is essential. It must be in-depth, informative, and generated from our life. The topic ‘Empirical analysis in regard to user privacy’ that the team chose fits the requirements of innovation and practicability.
iInterview with Zhou Lianglu, one of the team members
“Selecting the topic was actually a rather accidental process. Our instructor, Professor Zhang Suhua, emphasized the big loopholes in existing APP privacy agreements on the market, which are the consequences of numerous flaws in the Personal Information Protection Law of the PRC. Through comparing the privacy agreements of APPs that are widely used in the market, she advised us to summarize the problems and try to find applicable solutions,” said Zhou. “This research direction was later further proposed by our team member Liu Delong when we were discussing possible topics for this competition. All of us felt that this topic was directly linked to our lives. It was not only in line with the current hotspots, but also feasible for undergraduates to conduct research. It is something that comes from life, but also ‘beyond’ life since it requires innovation in solutions.”
The team members, together with the presentation board of their work
Innovative and practical solutions aren’t easy to find either since the issue is related to two major parties, App companies and users. “The balance is very important,” said Zhou, “the current situation is that the country is vigorously rectifying the APP industry, and many APPs have been removed from the market and revised. On the one hand, APP companies are worried that they will be punished for improperly misusing user information; on the other hand, users are also afraid that their personal rights are being violated.” The core of this topic is to create a normative system which not only protects the rights and interests of users but also provides APP companies with a set of rules on the reasonable use of user information.
Despite the team’s glorious achievements, they faced many obstacles along the way. “First of all, this topic is very novel, with little existing research,” recalled Zhou, “and second, China’s regulations for privacy agreements are relatively loose and disorderly, so we needed to start from some very basic papers and books to extract and conclude fundamental information, some of which are related foreign documents. It was our job to grope the establishment of relevant systems regarding privacy agreements.”
The team in the provincial contest
Zhou also shared some advice for future participants, “I guess two things are really necessary. First, the project topic should directly and precisely reflect on societal issues that relate to common people. Second, the choice of teammates and cooperation among them is also important. A great team is supposed to be diversified, with every member capable of different skills in various fields, such as academic research, technical application, and oral presentation. A single-dimensional team without reasonable distribution of tasks would be inefficient.”
WHU’s first “Challenge Cup” National Grand Prize in the field of social sciences certainly boosted the pride and confidence of many WHUers, inspiring the spark of novel ideas in other aspiring young students.
Photo by WHU APP Privacy Agreement Team
Edited by Li Hefeng, Li Jing, Qin Zehao，Zhang Yilin, Sylvia, Xi Bingqing
