cross-border transfer
Automating the GDPR Compliance Assessment for Cross-border Personal Data Transfers in Android Applications
Guamán, Danny S., Ferrer, Xavier, del Alamo, Jose M., Such, Jose
Abstract-- The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aims to ensure that all personal data processing activities are fair and transparent for the European Union (EU) citizens, regardless of whether these are carried out within the EU or anywhere else. To this end, it sets strict requirements to transfer personal data outside the EU. However, checking these requirements is a daunting task for supervisory authorities, particularly in the mobile app domain due to the huge number of apps available and their dynamic nature. In this paper, we propose a fully automated method to assess compliance of mobile apps with the GDPR requirements for cross-border personal data transfers. We have applied the method to the top-free 10,080 apps from the Google Play Store. The results reveal that there is still a very significant gap between what app providers and third-party recipients do in practice and what is intended by the GDPR. A substantial 56% of analysed apps are potentially non-compliant with the GDPR cross-border transfer requirements. THE distributed nature of today's digital systems and services across the world [1], or shared between chains of thirdparty not only facilitates the collection of personal data service providers [6], even without the app developer's from individuals anywhere, but also their transfer to different knowledge [7]. Second, apps are distributed through countries around the world [1]. This raises potential global stores, enabling app providers to easily reach markets risks to the privacy of individuals, as the organizations and users beyond its country of residence. In this sending and receiving personal data can be subject to different context, there is a need for constant vigilance by the various data protection laws and, therefore, may not offer an stakeholders, including app developers, supervisory equivalent level of protection.