Apple has strengthened its App Review Guidelines to require greater protection of children under 13 years and to clamp down on gambling apps that involve real money.
Some of the changes were required in order to comply with tougher requirements in the newly-expanded Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits apps from collecting personal data from children under 13 without ‘verifiable parental consent.’ Personal data initially meant name, address, phone numbers, email address and present location, but has now been expanded to include photos, video and audio. Apple has, however, gone further …
Apps aimed at children must contain a privacy policy, cannot tailor advertising to in-app activity and must not contain links to content outside the app or allow children to make purchases without verified parental consent.
Gambling apps that involve real money must be free to download and cannot offer the option to purchase credits or currency within the app. In other words, licensed gambling operations can offer supporting apps, but no-one else can create an app designed to allow gambling with real money.
Apple last year outlawed apps that promote other apps, or mimic the App Store. Back in 2010, we put together a few of our favourite review guidelines.
Via MacRumors
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“allow children to make purchases without verified parental consent.”
One good case scenario for a fingerprint scanner…..