By Dave McKay | August 30, 2020
New Code of Practice for Online Services
The Age Appropriate Design Code drawn up by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will come into force in the UK on 2nd September 2020. The much-anticipated has a 12-month transition period.
The code is based on 15 flexible standards to ensure a high level of privacy settings by default. They affect website designers and mobile application developers.
“We want coders, UX designers and system engineers to engage with these standards in their day-to-day work and we’re setting up a package of support to help,” said the ICO.
- Settings must be “high privacy” by default.
- Profiling must be off by default.
- Data minimisation practices should be followed.
- Geolocation services should be switched off.
- So-called “nudge techniques” that could encourage children “to provide unnecessary personal data, weaken or turn off their privacy settings,” are prohibited.
Nudging is using so what the ICO calls “dark pattern UI designs”:
“Nudge techniques are design features which lead or encourage users to follow the designer’s preferred paths in the user’s decision making. For example, in a graphic where the large green ‘yes’ button is presented far more prominently than the small print ‘no’ option.”
They went on to say, “when considering any enforcement action we will take into account the efforts you have made towards conformance during the transition period, as well as the size and resources of your organisation, and the risks to children inherent in your data processing.”
Following the guidelines will ensure you stay within the General Data Protection Regulations guidance for children.
If you need any of this explaining, get in touch and we’ll be happy to go through it with you.